


Sanchez & Scoresby

by RaeOfSunshine524



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: AND THIS STORY, and kit is a very new oc, and that's valid of me, but i love her, i'm just trying this out, i've never written for hdm before, is this a very long and elaborate fix-it-fic? maybe, there's no telling of how regular updates will be
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28077078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaeOfSunshine524/pseuds/RaeOfSunshine524
Summary: As christened by a good friend, a Fix-Kit-FicA hot-air balloon is on its way North, to Trollesund. Far below them, on the sea, a Gyptian boat sails in the same direction. On the boat is a girl who will change the world and in the sky are two adults who will guide her to her destiny. Their paths haven’t crossed yet, but they soon will, and once they have they’ll never diverge.Kit Sanchez and Lee Scoresby grew up together in Texas, ran away from their fathers together and have been sailing the skies ever since, but a little girl called Lyra is about to throw their world upside down....quite literally
Relationships: Lee Scoresby & Female OC, Lee Scoresby & Lyra Silvertongue, Lyra Silvertongue & Female OC, Marisa Coulter & Lyra Silvertongue
Comments: 37
Kudos: 39





	1. Pilot

**Author's Note:**

> This is just for fun! Kit sprang into my head the other day and, uh...this happened. I've never written for His Dark Materials so, uh, it is what it is

A hot-air balloon is on its way North, to Trollesund. Far below them, on the sea, a Gyptian boat sails in the same direction. On the boat is a girl who will change the world and in the sky are two adults who will guide her to her destiny. Their paths haven’t crossed yet, but they soon will, and once they have they’ll never diverge.

Lee Scoresby is sailing through the sky, singing as he clambers over the edge of his balloon’s basket,  _ Trade my home for the road again.  _ Kit Sanchez reaches out to him, their hands locking around each other’s elbows as she hauls him back on board.  _ Singing my songs with an old best friend _ . Lee continues to sing, clapping a hand on Kit’s shoulder. She shakes her head, but she joins in with the next line anyway,  _ Running around with a child’s mind.  _ Her voice is higher than his, clearer, though more liable to fall out of tune. On either side of the little control panel Lee and Kit turn towards, a hare and a lynx rest their front paws on the edge of the basket. Hester and Eli, their daemons.  _ A man gets lucky just a couple of times. _

“Sing it, Hester, Eli.” Lee says, breaking the song for a moment.

“I ain’t singin’.” Eli mutters even as the other three break into a well-practiced harmony. Lee picks up a tin mug to drink from, but Kit takes it from him almost before he’s finished drinking.

“That’s my tea, Scoresby.”

“And who made it for you?”

“You really think it’s gonna be Iorek?” Kit asks, lifting the cup to her mouth.

“Real subtle, Sanchez.”

“Thanks for the tea. I just, I dunno, Lee. It just…”

“It doesn’t sound like the Iorek we knew.” Hester agrees with Kit.

“Look, from what I hear a seal-hunter got him drunk and tricked him out of his armour.” Lee assures them.

“That’ll have been a real boost to his ego.” Eli snarks, and Kit shoots him a look. “What?” Eli asks, acting the innocent. Kit shakes her head at him, passes the tea to Lee and leans over the edge of the balloon. They’ve just passed over another cloud, and Kit can see the sea now. It’s calm and clear, and Kit can see a ship heading in the same direction as the balloon, towards Trollesund.

“He’s gotta point.” Hester admits, “Lee, are you sure Iorek will want us making trouble?”

“That bear saved our lives, Hester. We owe him trouble.” Lee tells her. Kit leans further forward before reaching up to the bar above her head, hoisting herself up so she stands on the edge of the basket. She closes her eyes against the wind.

“What’s the plan, Lee? We march into the first bar we find and demand information?” She asks.

“That’s as good a plan as any.”

***

Lee marches into the first bar he finds, and all the chatter stops. The barkeep stops pouring the drink he’d been preparing.

“Say what you like about the North, wherever you go is guaranteed to be a bar full of men who should be at home but aren’t.” Lee announces. This does nothing to warm up the atmosphere. Lee moves forward, proposing different card games and then, “Will you join me in a glass of hot rum? My round.” he offers, and the door swings open again. A woman walks into the bar, wearing a hat and coat similar to Lee’s and with a lynx softly padding along beside her.

“I’ll join you.” Kit tells him, and the temperature in the room drops again. It seems their reputation has preceded them. They’d expected that, considering the thin-face young man who had sought them out after they’d landed, but this not-so-warm welcome isn’t something they’ve really experienced before and it looks like they’ll be playing to a tough crowd.

“Miss Sanchez, how lovely of you to join me. I’m just looking for some conversation, see?”

“I see, Mr Scoresby, I do see. I’m looking for some _ one _ .” 

“Are you now? Well, maybe I can help you.”

“I’m looking for a bear, Mr Scoresby.” She feels the energy in the room change, the flip from disinterested avoidance to aggression. Eli senses the change too, tensing, tail flicking agitatedly from side to side.

“Ain’t that funny, Hester, we’re after a bear too.” Lee says. He’s facing the crowd and Kit’s looking at the barkeep, picking up the drink he’d been pouring and downing it. “He’s kinda royal looking,” Lee goes on, “fancy armour. Well, no armour anymore...I know, strange for these parts.” Lee looks to Kit, “You know what a bear looks like, don’t you, Miss Sanchez?”

“Sure I do. Thick white coat, big teeth, wiggly nose.” Kit turns to face the men. “And now one of you nice boys is gonna tell us where we can find Iorek Byrnison and which son-of-a-bitch tricked him into givin’ away his armour.” Kit’s the one who curses, who’s trying to initiate the fight, but it’s Lee that gets the first hit, Lee that gets socked in the nose, slammed into the bar and then into a column in the middle of the room.

“Kit! Kit, help him!”

“Aw, Hester, do I have to?”

“ _ Kit _ .”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” Kit slams her glass back down onto the bar, yells something and dives in. She grabs the collar of the man pushing Lee into the column and drags him back. Not expecting the sharp tug, the man stumbles back into the bar. Kit uses the momentum of her turn back towards Lee to sink her fist into the gut of the next man who goes after him. Kit hears a loud snarl from her daemon.

“Bottle!” Eli shouts to her, and her arm goes up in time to protect her head from the blow. If the men had gone for Lee first because they didn’t want to hit a woman, that hesitancy is gone.

“Hell’s teeth, Lee, gonna give me a hand?” Kit asks, sidestepping out of the way of a charging man. He does wade in then, or at least he tries with Hester coaching him. Unfortunately, Lee isn’t particularly adept at fighting and is soon forcibly thrown from the building. “How about you let me leave without the manhandling?” Kit asks. She is declined this request and lands next to Lee on the ground.

“Well, that showed them.” Hester says dryly.

“I’d like to think I made my point.” Lee says, rolling onto his side to reach into his pocket as Kit stands, brushing herself off and inspecting her knuckles. 

“And what point was that?”

“Three watches and a wallet.” Lee says, pulling his prizes from his pocket. Kit reaches into the pocket of her own greatcoat.

“I raise you two wallets, two rings and a bottle of whiskey.” She tells him, grateful that only the neck of the bottle has a small crack. Lee looks up at her, incredulous. “I fought more guys than you.” Kit shrugs, “Gotta get better at throwin’ punches, Scoresby.”

“Why, when I got you around?” Lee cracks a smile. Kit crouches in front of him, and again they lock hands as she helps him to his feet.

“Come on, you sop, let’s find Iorek before you get a black eye.”

“HAS ANYONE SEEN A BEAR?” Lee yells the moment he’s recovered enough.

“And there’s the black eye.” Eli sighs, as he and his human share a look and she folds her arms. Several yards away, a young girl tugs on the sleeve of the older man she’s walking with, her father, Kit thinks. The girl points towards where she and Lee are standing and says something. The older man nods and the two of them change course for the bar. 

“What do you want with a bear?” the girl asks, then, “You’re bleeding.”

“Hazard of the job.” Lee tells her. Eli sidles closer to the girl’s daemon, which fluidly grows to become some kind of wildcat that’s a similar size to Eli. He hasn’t settled yet.

“And what job’s that?”

“We’re in aeronautics.” Lee explains.

“What part of being an aeronaut-” she starts.

“Let me give you a tip, kid, never upset a seagull.” Lee and Kit jump down from the raised decking of the bar together, though it clearly pains Lee.

“You’re not serious.”

“Not if he can help it.” Kit tells the girl. Her daemon has shifted again, back into the Arctic Fox form he had held before.

“Will he want to see you, this bear?” The girl asks. The older man, who Kit will later find out is not her father, is letting her take complete control of this exchange.

“I hope so.” Lee mutters. Kit’s eyes narrow a little.

“You know where he is, don’t you?” She asks, leaning forward a little. “Look, kiddo, we’re here to help Iorek, he shouldn’t be here.”

“How do you know him?” The girl asks.

“Well, she’s a sprung box, isn’t she, she just keeps asking questions.” Lee says, rather sharply, addressing the man she’s with. 

“Lee.” Hester and Kit say it together, a warning that he ignores,

“Lee Scoresby. Can you tell me where to find him?” he asks, shaking hands with the man who admits,

“I’m just following her lead.” The girl looks rather smug at that.

“I’m Kit. Will you tell us where he is?”

“What’s keeping him trapped here?”

“Kid, we’ll tell you that when you tell us what you know.” Lee tells her. The girl seems to think about this for a moment, but then she pulls a face.

“Another time.”

“Why won’t you tell me?” Lee calls after her as she walks away.

“Because we need him, and I’m not sure that you won’t take him from us.” 

“Good going, Lee.” Eli grumbles, “Now we gotta trawl through all of Trollesund.”

“We were gonna do that anyway.” Kit says, still watching the girl as she walks away, “But it ain’t all bad.” She uncorks the bottle of whiskey and passes it to Lee. “Let’s get going, Scoresby.”

***

The second stolen bottle is empty by the time they find the right alley, catch a glimpse of white fur disappearing around the corner.

“IOREK BYRNISON!” The name rips out of both Lee and Kit at once. 

“Iorek, the fuck are you doing down here?” Kit’s words, though  _ she  _ won’t admit it, are a little slurred. She can’t even feel the pain of the cut she’d gotten from that bottle earlier that day.

“It’s, uh, it’s been some time.” Lee says. His words are clearer, stronger than Kit’s.

“It hasn’t been some time, it’s been three years.” Iorek’s voice rumbles from the depths of the alley.

“ _ Fuck  _ me.” Kit mumbles. Lee hardly reacts except to frown a little. 

“Three years, long as all that?” Lee asks.

“It has not been a  _ good  _ three years.” Iorek informs him.

“We want to help, Iorek, Kit and I. Can we help? We owe you.” Lee tells him. Iorek steps forward out of the darkness.

“And how can you help me?”

“Getcha armour back.” Kit offers.

“She’s right, Iorek. Some look good naked, you do not.” Lee tells him. Kit giggles at the remark and Eli plonks himself rather ungracefully onto the ground. “Who has your armour?”

“I am drunk, Lee.” Iorek admits, “And not behaving as a bear should, and I’d rather you leave.”

“And what if I don’t want to go!” The question is shouted rather than asked, “You know, when I see an old friend, I’m inclined to tell him where I’ve been, the adventures I’ve had.” As Lee speaks, Iorek steps fully into the light.

“Iorek! Lee, it’s Iorek!” Kit exclaims excitedly, grabbing onto Lee’s arm.

“I know, Kit, I know.”

“I have done things I’d rather not talk about.” Iorek says, ignoring the drunken Kit.

“I’ve done some things I’m not too keen on people knowing either.” Lee tells him.

“We stole some stuff today.” Kit blurts.

“That we did.” Lee agrees, softening, “Tell me what you’ve done. We wouldn’t judge you, couldn’t judge you.”

“And what if I desire to be judged?” Iorek asks. Just as he turns away, Kit reaches out as if to place her hand on his muzzle.

“Iorek, no…” Sadness fills her voice, and then sudden anger, “We came all this way for you, Iorek!”

“Then leave, Kit. Take your balloon and fly away, Lee. For I neither asked you to come nor do I want you to stay.” Iorek says, the white of his fur already fading into the darkness he’s retreating back into.

“Iorek!  _ Iorek Byrnison! _ ” Kit calls after him again. Lee stands still for a moment, and he knows what Hester would say.  _ Don’t let him go _ . But he turns, his arm falling into a familiar place around Kit as he guides her out of the alley.

“C’mon, Kit. It’s time to sleep.”

“But Iorek…”

“I don’t think he’s comin’ with us.”

***

Lee wakes up with a thumping headache, which only gets worse when he sits up and finds the sun slicing into his eye. His hand goes to his head as he takes stock of his surroundings. The room he and Kit had paid for in the bar they’d fought in. It’s a small room, the bed Lee’s sitting on taking up most of the space. He can see the little nest of clothes and scavenged blankets Kit had made for herself on the floor. Kit herself is sitting on the only chair in the room, her elbow propped on the windowsill and a half-empty bottle next to it. She’s taken off her long-sleeved overshirt to get at where she’d been cut yesterday, and Lee can see the odd markings on her back, but he doesn’t mention them. He never has. A needle glints in the light.

“Bloody hell, Kit, can’t you close the curtains?”

“What, you want me to stitch my arm in the dark?” Kit asks from where she sits on the only chair in the room. She doesn’t look at him, concentrating on her second stitch. Eli’s slowly scratching the carpet from the pain that his human shows no indication of. “You got some wicked bruises on your back, Lee, but it isn’t too bad. Washroom’s down the hall if you want it.”

“Nah, I’m good.” Lee says, even as Hester’s nose wrinkles. Kit has washed, the ends of her hair are still damp, which also explains her alertness and clearness of mind compared to Lee’s.

“Well get out of the bed, Scoresby. We gotta get Iorek’s armour back.” Kit’s on her fourth stitch now. She pulls it too tight and Eli hisses.

“I can do that for you, Kit.”

“It’s fine.” Kit tells him, her voice sharper than she’d intended, her lips pressed together into a thin, straight line as she concentrates.

“Alright, alright.” Lee stands up then, wanders towards where Kit is sitting to look for his boots.

“Where’re we gonna go to look for the armour?” Hester asks.

“That guy we met yesterday, got all touchy when we mentioned Iorek. Might be some kind of authority around here.”

“Oh, he’ll be pleased to see us alright, after we started a fight and robbed half the people blind.”

“We did not rob the people blind. We just took the valuables and drink they no longer needed.”

“Another important question, will the balloon take Iorek?” Eli asks through gritted teeth.

“Let’s hope so, Kit, are you sure you don’t want me to-” Lee gets cut off by an angry noise from Eli. “ _ Alright,  _ I get it. You don’t gotta snap at me, Sanchez.” Kit tips her head into her hand.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ll go see if they’ll rustle up breakfast, huh?” Lee leaves the room without his boots. 

***

It’s cold in Trollesund, much colder than any of them are used to being on the ground. The cold helps wake Lee up, and Kit reaches up to push her hat further down to better cover her ears. Eli winds in between her legs as she stands waiting outside of Sysselman’s office, and Lee stamps his feet as if he’s the hare rather than Hester. They’re there for ten minutes before Sysselman actually arrives, and he offers them tea as he escorts them inside. It isn’t any warmer inside than it was out.

“It’s not often we get customers waiting for us.” He admits as he hands out small tin cups.

“You haven’t got that lucky, Mr Sysselman. We’re not handing ourselves in.” Lee tells him.

“Is that right?” Mr Sysselman asks, the question accompanied by an odd half-laugh as he sits at his desk. Kit leans against the wall, leaving Lee to stand opposite Sysselman. “How can I help?”

“I’m representing the bear.” Lee answers. 

“The bear’s case is closed.”

“Correction, he’s representing himself via the bear.” Kit corrects, lifting her little cup to her lips.

“And who is representing you, Miss Sanchez?”

“Representing me for what? I haven’t committed any crimes that I’d need representation for.”

“What we’re getting at is that you confiscated my property, not the bear’s.” Lee steers the conversation away from Kit, who reaches down to scratch her daemon’s head.

“Yes, I doubt that, Mr Scoresby.” Mr Sysselman says, clearly feeling he still has control of this exchange.

“This is why I’ve been seeking him.” Lee reaches into a pocket, pulling out a sheet of paper, “Now, this is a bill of sale stating that I, not Iorek Byrnison, own his armour.” Sysselman’s little lizard daemon crawls forward to poke her tongue at the bill. “He lost it to me in a game of cards, you see.”

“That  _ we  _ should have won.” Eli mumbles.

“He needed a win that day.” Kit reminds him before draining her cup.

“I’ve come back to reclaim it.” Lee continues, speaking over his friend and her daemon. After a moment, Sysselman stands and turns to his filing cabinet.

“The bear’s armour belongs to the Magesterium.”

“Well, I don’t remember the Magesterium buyin’ it off us, d’you, Lee?” Kit asks from her corner.

“No, I do not.” Lee says. He’s standing very still now. Hester’s ears twitch.

“He’s paying off a blood debt.” Sysselman informs them, putting the papers he’d retrieved from his filing cabinet down on his desk for Lee to see. 

“Well, yes, this document is correct, as far as the Crime and Debt Act, chapter three, paragraph four-point-five is concerned….” Lee goes on with the kind of babble Kit has only ever heard in court and always tunes out, and she can see Sysselman getting more and more uncomfortable until,

“Please do not doubt my intelligence, Mr Scoresby-”

“We ain’t doubting your intelligence, Sysselman. We wanna know how much the Magesterium paid you to fabricate this.” Kit says, pushing herself off the wall and stepping forward to stand next to Lee. “And how much it would cost to rewrite it.”

“Now, you be careful of what you accuse me of, Miss Sanchez.” Sysselman tells her, pointing a single finger at her. Kit just shoves her hands into her pockets, the outline of her pistol becoming visible as she does so.

“If money doesn’t work for you, we can always try somethin’ else.” She says, her tone surprisingly light, “Break the leash the Magesterium has you on.”

“Whatever you’re accusing me of-”

“Now, the North,” Lee cuts in, “as I understand it, has always been a place for people who didn’t fit in or didn’t want to. The Magesterium has been trying to gain power out here for over a generation. No one ever actually let them in. Until, perhaps, now.” As Lee speaks his last sentence, Sysselman pulls open a drawer in his desk and pulls out a gun. Kit’s eyebrow quirks upwards as she pulls her own pistol out of her pocket.

“Look, Mr Sysselman, we don’t want to hurt anyone. We just want to help our friend who has been trapped, much like yourself, in the Magesterium’s web.”

“I am not-” Kit clicks the safety off her gun and Sysselman clams up.

“How long did you think you’d be able to keep him cooped up? Iorek Byrnison is a bear, the truest Panserbjørn I have ever known.”

“As the lady says. Iorek is no slave and he has no debt to pay.” Is all Lee says before retrieving his bill of sale and leading Kit out of the office. “Fancy some lunch before we wreck the town, Miss Sanchez?”

“I believe there are bacon sandwiches with our names on them.”

***

“Remind me why you chose to sleep here, Kit?” Hester asks as the aeronautical partners make their way from their room downstairs to where lunch should be waiting for them.

“It’s the best bed we’re gonna find in Trollesund.”

“And bacon.” Lee adds.

“And bacon.” Kits repeats, correcting herself, “And clean toilets, that’s a real plus.”

“It worries me that bacon is more important to you two than survival.” Hester says, in a rather defeated tone.

“How would we survive without bacon?” Eli asks, padding down the stairs ahead of the humans.

“You are aware that everyone is looking at us?” Hester asks, “It’s time to leave.”

“Well, we’re not leaving without Iorek.” Lee tells her.

“Or without lunch.” Eli adds. Lee and Kit sit at a table just as two girls, two almost-identical girls at that, place plates and mugs on the table. Quick thank-yous are said as Hester jumps up onto a spare chair and Eli settles under the table. 

“They know you stole from them, Lee.” Hester tells him.

“We know they know. They’re not doing anything about it, are they?” Kit points out, picking up her knife and fork. She’s wearing the rings she’d nicked yesterday.

“Every minute we spend here longer than we should-” Hester starts, ignoring Kit.

“That bear saved our lives, Hester.” Lee reminds her, gesturing towards Kit with his fork. He’s clearly signalling that the conversation is over, but Hester goes on,

“And we came here to repay him, and he told us he didn’t need our help!” Eli’s ears perk up as the door bangs open.

“Issthe girl from yesterday.” Kit says around a mouthful of food. Before Lyra moves forward, she takes note of the aeronauts’ appearances. They’re similar in colouring, though the woman’s skin is darker. It’s far warmer in the bar than it is outside, so they’ve taken off their huge coats. He’s still wearing a leather jacket, and she has some kind of bandana around her neck. With an odd, quick rush of something not unlike fear or disgust, the girl realises that the woman is missing a finger. No, one whole finger and half of another.

“Who didn’t need your help?” The girl asks, striding towards their table and taking the last empty chair.

“You know, kid, much as I like you, now’s not the time.” Lee tells her.

“What’s your name, kiddo?” Eli asks the question for Kit, as her mouth is still full.

“My name is Lyra Belacqua. I represent John Faa, ruler of the Western Gyptians, and we would like to hire you.”

“Do you now? Could you afford us?” Lee asks.

“The Magesterium is stealing children. We have to get them back, and it occurred to us that the help of an aeronaut might be of some use. We’d be grateful of your services.” The girl leans forward and swipes a rasher of bacon off Lee’s plate, “We’d pay in gold.”

“We know what you’re fighting, kid, and we know you’re gonna lose.” Lee tells her.

“D’you play cards?” She asks, and Lee laughs.

“What do you know about cards?”

“I used to play them with the scholars I lived with. They are much cleverer than me, but I generally won.”

“Scholars, huh? They don’t know how to play cards, believe me.” Kit huffs, scooping beans into her mouth.

“I learned that sometimes a bad hand can be your greatest weapon.”

“You callin’ us the Gyptians bad hand?”

“Sometimes when there is no hope, it can allow you to bluff magnificently.” She takes another rasher from Kit’s plate and bites into it as if to punctuate her statement.

“Remind me never to play cards with you.” Lee says dryly.

“As if you’re any good at cards.” Kit counters.

“We need you. And the bear.”

“You need the bear and you think you can get him through us.” Kit corrects.

“How do we get him to come with us?” The girl asks, and this makes Kit smile.

“You’ve already tried, haven’t you? Iorek ain’t gonna go anywhere with you and the Gyptians, kiddo. Iorek ain’t goin’ anywhere at all.”

“He’s an armoured bear.” Lyra points out. They’re looking at her expectantly, both sipping tea at the same moment as they wait for her to put the pieces together, “What could they-” she cuts herself off and voices her realisation, “They got his armour.”

“Hey, you got there without needing my help.” Lee says, sounding rather happy.

“Why’s his armour so important?” Lyra asks, biting into the second piece of bacon from Lee’s plate.

“War is the sea he swims in and the air he breathes. No….without his armour…his armour means as much to him as Hester here does to me.” Lee tries to explain, his smile to Hester half an apology and half his explanation.

“His armour’s like his daemon?” Lyra asks, clearly confused.

“His soul is in those pieces of metal. But the Magesterium will have it well hidden.” Lee looks over his shoulder, to the Magesterium soldier sitting not too far away. As he goes on, both Kit and Lyra reach out at the same time for the last two rashers of bacon on Lee’s plate, stuffing them in their mouths in near-perfect synchronicity. “Now, I’ve been thinking that maybe Kit and I are outgunned in this town, but we’ve got some craft of our own, you understand. No, if I can’t win Iorek his freedom then-” He turns his head again to find Lyra gone, “Where did she go?”

“Left.” Kit shrugs, swallowing the last of her stolen bacon and picking up her own fork again.

“She’s quick.” Lee admits, “And she stole my bacon.” 

“Yeah, well, when you start waxing poetic-like over a Panserbjørn…” Kit lets her sentence trail off, earning a hard look from Lee. “I like her.”

“Do you now?”

“She’s damn determined.” Kit points out, not taking her eyes off her friend as she starts to smile, “Reminds me of someone.” She can tell Lee’s somewhere between rolling his eyes and smiling with her. “She was talkin’ bout the Gobblers, Lee. No one know what’s happenin’ to those kids. The Gyptian’s kids, they’ve been taken. They need help to get them back.”

“Kit, we’re here to get Iorek-”

“And why are we getting Iorek, Scoresby? Why’d it take you three years to decide to come find him?” Sadness softens Kit’s features. “Kids, Lee. Like her. Like us. Authority knows  _ we  _ needed help.  _ They  _ need help and we can give it to ‘em!”

“Kit…”

“Lee.”

“I know what you’re gonna say.”

“You do.” Kit agrees. There’s a moment where they stare at each other, almost having an argument without words. Lee’s the first one to blink. He looks to Hester and stands.

“Alright. Where d’you reckon the Magesterium’d hide a bear’s armour?” he asks her.

“A church?”

“Here we go again, trawling through Trollesund.” Eli sighs.

“There’s an oratory not far away.” Kit recalls as they make their way back up the stairs, “We’ll check there first.” Several minutes later, they leave the bar, yet again followed by stares of hatred. As they open the door, screams hit them.

“Aw shit, Lee.” Kit starts.

“She’s gone an’ riled up Iorek.” Lee finishes, just as an echoing roar comes from the direction of the oratory.

It doesn’t take them long to get there, but Iorek has found his armour. How the hell the girl had found it before them, they had no idea. Iorek has also already disposed of several Magesterial soldiers. Some small parts of Lee and Kit take pride in seeing Sysselman being squashed underfoot by the bear. They’re just within earshot of Lyra trying to talk the ice-bear down,

“You owe me a debt, now you can repay it. Do as I ask, don’t fight these men!”

“You owe her a debt too? Damn, Iorek, you’re racking up debts faster than Kit.” Lee calls out.

“Faster’n  _ you,  _ I think you mean.” Kit elbows him, “Mr Sysselman, you look to be in a bit of a pinch.”

“Havin’ fun? I hope so.” Lee asks, and near-identical smug smiles spread across his and Kit’s faces.

“Just turn around, walk away with me.” Lyra says to Iorek, holding a hand out to him.

“She’s makin’ sense, Iorek, you know it.” Kit tells him.

“Her people need our help. Let’s go give it.” Lee adds, “This isn’t who you are.” There’s a beat of silence before Iorek roars, but he does roar, and Lee and Kit know what the sound means. It means Iorek Byrnison is on their side. It makes them smile, and Lyra smiles in return. Lyra moves away first, and Lee follows directly. Kit waits for Iorek to release Sysselman. He regards her for a moment, and she reaches out, tentatively, to rest her hand on his head. A moment later, her forehead meets the crown of Iorek’s armour. 

“I accept your apology, Kit Sanchez.”

“Thank you, Iorek Byrnison.”

“You coming or not?” Lee yells from the other side of the little bridge.

“Yeah, yeah.” Kit waves a hand at him, nodding her head towards Iorek before making her way across the bridge and towards the docks. It doesn’t take long, but Lee and Kit hang back, giving the Gyptians a moment to get used to Iorek before announcing their arrival. 

“He’s been mistreated and tricked. Just like the Gyptians have been! Always mistreated and tricked. He’s practically Gyptian. Just like I am.” Lyra explains.

“Lyra. You cannot constantly be disobeying me.” The man who seems to be the Gyptian leader, must be the John Faa Lyra had mentioned earlier, clearly isn’t pleased with her. Lee decides this is when he and Kit should cut in.

“I agree. Who wants a disobedient kid? But she’s right.”

“You’ve changed your tune.” Eli remarks.

“He’s a good bear. You won’t have any trouble, as long as you pay him. And us.”

“And who’s this?” John Faa asks. This takes Kit and Lee aback. He blinks and looks at Lyra. Kit can already hear Eli snickering.

“You told me he’d asked for me.” Lee says quietly, leaning closer to Lyra so as to be heard.

“Us.” Kit corrects.

“Yeah, what she said.”

“No, I told you he’d be grateful for you.” Lyra corrects Lee too, which he isn’t particularly pleased about.

“Yeah, I was working on him already being grateful, you’ve entirely messed up my sales pitch.” Lee hisses.

“What did I tell you about how I play cards?” Lyra asks. Kit, suppressing a laugh, holds out her hand.

“You must be John Faa. Kit Sanchez and Lee Scoresby. I fight, he flies.” Kit tells him, taking it upon herself to take over the ‘sales pitch.’ 

“We don’t come cheap and neither should we. You’ll get gold for gold.” Of course,  _ of course  _ Lee has to mention their expenses at this moment. Lyra reaches out and pushes Kit’s rejected hand down.

“They’re aeronauts. They have a balloon. They could be  _ useful _ .” Lyra pleads. John Faa doesn’t look particularly happy, but he concedes.

“Well then. Welcome aboard, Kit Sanchez. Lee Scoresby. We have a long and dangerous journey ahead.”


	2. Ma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is....late while I give this it's last read-over, so if I've made any mistakes spelling or grammar wise, please do let me know! I wasn't 100% sure about posting this right now and, who knows, I might take it down to do some more editing tomorrow, but some part of my brain felt happy about it. 
> 
> I'm so happy people are enjoying this and Kit's character, I didn't expect that XD
> 
> Last chapter was a fun jolly along, it's all downhill from here......

“I’m cold, Lee.” Kit bites out, her shoulders shuddering.

“Hell, Kit, I can’t control the weather.” Lee replies, and Kit pulls a hand out of a pocket to hit his arm with. She sidesteps so that she bumps into Lee and stays there as she walks, hoping to leech some of his body heat. Eli, sitting on the balloon as it’s dragged along, curls into a tighter ball as Hester shuffles closer to him.

“ _ I’m  _ not cold.” Lyra interjects.

“We’re from Texas, kiddo, we ain’t made for the cold.”

“Isn’t the wind cold up in the sky?”

“That’s a dry cold, the wind. Down here, it’s damp cold.”

“Why aren’t you up in the balloon now?”

“Savin’ it for when it’s needed.” Lee answers.

“Wouldn’t it be useful to have a view of what’s ahead?” Lyra asks. Pan hops up onto the folded-up balloon to nose around Eli’s head.

“We have.” Lee points upwards. Serafina Pekkela’s daemon, Kaisa, has been following them since they left Trollesund. Lee’s free fingers close around Kit’s wrist, “A witch’s daemon is a better eye in the sky than I’ll ever be. A witch would be even better.”

“Drop it, Lee.” Kit mutters.

“Mr Scoresby-” Lyra starts.

“Call me Lee.”

“We’re going to win this one, aren’t we? We’re going to get those children back?”

“Well, if I was a bettin’ man, I’d say no. And I am a bettin’ man. If I was Kit, I’d say yes because she’s stubborn. And I can tell by your face that you want me to say yes, so...yes.”

“You’re not an easy man to like, you know that, Lee?”

“So people tell me. But Hester likes me, Kit likes me. That’s something.”

“Hester don’t count, she don’t have a choice.” Eli mumbles, earning a hard stare from the hare.

“Why do you travel together, Miss Sanchez?” Lyra asks.

“Kit.” Kit corrects her.

“Kit.”

“We grew up together, kiddo. We were next-door-neighbours and our fathers were friends. Either we got on or we’d end up murdering each other, and he isn’t dead yet.”

“Hell, Kit, you’re makin’ me blush.” Lee says, in the hope it’ll make Kit smile, and it does.

“We left home together, been flyin’ ever since.”

“Why did you leave?” Lyra asks, and in a second she knows this was the wrong question to ask. They stop smiling and they break apart. Kit shoves her hands back into her pockets and Eli jumps down from the balloon’s sled.

“I’m going to go see if there’s any bread floatin’ around.” She announces before marching forward, her daemon bounding after her. Lee shakes his head.

“You ask a lotta questions, Lyra. They’re not always good ones.” It’s all he says before he takes off after Kit. She hears Lyra call an apology before Lee catches up with her.

***

Lee, of course and exactly as Kit expects, disappears the moment he’s needed to help put tents up, leaving Kit with a contraption neither she nor her daemon have ever understood. She’s trying to palm the task off to someone else, reaching Ma Costa and her elder son at the same moment Lyra does. Ma’s younger son, Billy, is one of the children taken by the Gobblers.

“Tony, look after the food.” Ma tells her son so she can turn her full attention to Lyra.

“I’ll burn it.” Tony tells her.

“I don’t care.”

“I’ll watch it.” Kit offers, crouching beside Tony and shoving the tent pack at him, “If you put up my tent. Food for shelter.” She takes cooking utensils from Ma and pokes at whatever stew is in the pot while Tony, grumbling to his daemon, marches away with the tent. Seal stew, probably, Kit thinks. Iorek had caught one earlier that day to use the blubber for armour polish and the Gyptians are not a wasteful people. Another advantage of helping Ma now is that Kit will be able to hear what Lyra’s saying to her, what she’s planning. Too many things in the world are revolving around this little girl for Kit to ignore.

“What do you think might be in this village?” Ma Costa asks the young girl.

“I’m not sure, but it might be some sort of ghost, I think. Something awful has happened there.” Lyra’s trying to explain as best she can. How she knows this, Kit has no idea...she’ll have to ask Farder Coram. He’s more likely to answer than John Faa.

“Why’s this ghost important?” Ma asks.

“I don’t know, but it might be a vital clue. It might help me find Roger and Billy.” Billy, Ma’s son. Roger, a kitchen boy from Oxford Lyra had known all her life. She’d told Kit and Lee all about Roger before she’d started asking questions.

“You’re asking me to trust you over-”

“No. No, I’m not. I’m asking you to trust this.” Lyra pulls out an odd, flat box that looks like it might be made of gold. The glint of it catches Kit’s attention, and Eli’s eyes follow it. Kit can understand what Ma Costa is saying. Lyra’s asking her to go against the person she trusts most, her leader. How this little box would sway her…

“You ask a lot. I need to think.”

***

Night falls quickly in the North. Tony, bless him, had done a good job with the tent, setting it next to where Ma and Lyra would be sleeping. Kit and Lee lean against their tent, a donated blanket around their shoulders as they pass a tin bowl of stew to each other between spoonfuls. Eli is curled up on the snow between Kit’s feet, and she can feel the chill of it on her back. Ma Costa and Lyra are lying on their stomachs in the mouth of their tent, talking to Serafina Pekkela’s daemon Kaisa.

“D’you know what an alethiometer is, Lee?” Kit speaks slowly, watching the fire crackling between the tents.

“Can’t say that I do.”

“Lyra’s got one. She talks about it, it’s what makes Coram and Faa trust her.” Kit explains. “Must be that little gold box she’s got…” Her voice trails off and her head tilts back a little.

“You’re thinkin’ too much, Kit. We’re here to get the kids, get paid and fly away.”

“I dunno, Lee. I gotta feelin’ about her. Lyra.”

“Like a premonition?”

“I don’t get premonitions, Lee.”

“Well, what kinda feeling?”

“There’s something about her. The Gyptians think she’s important. I think the witches do too.”

“The witches?” Lee asks as a weight tips onto his shoulder. Kit’s head.

“A witch wouldn’t send her daemon to tail us for days if we didn’t have something she wanted.”

“And you think that thing is Lyra?” Lee asks. He doesn’t get an answer. “Kit?” Her legs fall to the side, bumping into his. She’s fallen asleep. He lifts his hat off his head and places it over Kit’s face to prevent the light of the fire from waking her up and takes the empty tin bowl from her hand. When the aeronaut next looks at the fire, Ma Costa and Lyra have wriggled into their tent, as have many of the other Gyptians. Kaisa is still perched in the same place, his eyes fixed on the sleeping Kit.

***

The next day, as the Gyptians make their way up a snowless hill, the sky is a beautifully clear blue. Perfect flying weather. Lee and Kit are shouldering the balloon sled up the hill.

“Authority above, when are we gonna get a lunch?” Lee asks the clouds.

“You  _ just  _ had breakfast, Scoresby. Or did Lyra nick it again?”

“You’re a real comedian, you know that, Sanchez?”

“I’m taking that as a compliment.” Kit tells him.

“I’m just going to-”

“You’re just going to keep pushing the damn balloon, Lee Scoresby, you ain’t leavin’ me with it like you did yesterday.”

“You sound like my mother.”

“I knew your ma, that  _ is  _ a compliment.” Kit laughs. She watches Lyra, Lord Faa and Iorek talking as she and Lee pass with the balloon, but her gaze drifts past them to another well-respected Gyptian. “Eli, go and talk to Farder Coram, tell him I wanna speak with him when we make camp.”

“About that feeling?” Lee asks.

“Something like that.”

***

Kit takes perhaps a little too much pleasure in dropping the tent in Lee’s arms and marching towards Farder Coram. He smiles a little when he sees her, though there’s sadness in his eyes.

“What is it you wish to ask, child?”

“Lyra talks about an alethiometer. She says it’s what told her about this ghost in the fishing village. Thing is, Farder, I don’t rightly know what an alethiometer is and I’d like to find out.”

“I expected this. There were only ever six alethiometers made. The Magesterium has one, Lyra another. The whereabouts of the other four are unknown. An alethiometer is a truth-teller. There are...symbols around its circumference. You ask it a question and it answers using those symbols.”

“Then why is it so special that Lyra can understand it?”

“Alethiometers take a long time to understand, Miss Sanchez. Only a certain few can read them, and it takes years of study and isolation for the device to talk to them. Even then, hours are usually spent trying to decipher what the symbols mean. Lyra is special because she hasn’t done any of that study and she has no guide to it, but she can communicate with it perfectly.”

“I’m guessin’ no one’s ever done that before.” Kit pushes her hands into her pockets as her fingers grow icy again.

“You would be right to guess that.” Farder Coram nods.

“And that’s why y’all trust her so much.” Kit decides, “Why you’re letting her go to the village.”

“We can’t afford to turn all of the Gyptians around.”

“I understand, but she can’t go alone.”

“Iorek Byrnison is going with her.” Fard Coram is watching Kit expectantly, waiting for her judgement on this.

“Iorek’s the best protection she could have.” Kit nods, “We can hold until they return.”

“They’ll be leaving soon, I advise you say your goodbyes.” Farder Coram tells her, tapping his hat in farewell as he stamps through the snow away from her. From what Serafina Pekkela had told him the night before, Kit Sanchez was the next best thing to the armoured bear, though she hadn’t told him why.

Kit reaches Lyra and Iorek at the same time Lee does.

“What happened to the tent?” She asks, noting the ceramic mug in his hand.

“Tony’s doing it.”

“Tony did it yesterday!”

“Well, I wasn’t gonna miss this. Iorek’s first ride!” If Iorek could roll his eyes like a human, he would.

“I’m not heavy.” Lyra assures the bear.

“I’m not a horse.” Iorek counters. Lee is trying to disguise a laugh with his mug, but Iorek sees it.

“Kid, promise me this alethiometer thingy isn’t lying to you.” Lee says.

“It can’t. Tells the truth, don’t it, Lyra?” Kit cuts in, and Lyra nods.

“I trust it too.” Iorek agrees, outnumbering Lee’s doubts.

“Ghosts, I heard. You’re going to find a ghost?” He asks.

“Think so.” Lyra answers.

“Is that a sensible thing to do, look for ghosts?”

“I’ve never heard Lee Scoresby talk about being sensible before.” Iorek remarks, and this time it’s Kit that laughs. Lee laughs, but sarcastically, elbowing Kit.

“Kit?” Lyra asks, pulling the woman’s attention to her, “I’m sorry for asking questions.”

“Kiddo, you did nothing wrong, hear me? Ask as many questions as you like.” Kit pulls a yellow scarf from around her neck, “Now, you’re going to a fishing village. Be careful on the ice, I don’t want you fallin’ through.” Kit’s voice has hardened now. This isn’t just a suggestion. “And take this,” Kit hands her scarf to the girl, “Wrap it around your head. You’ll be able to see through it, but it’ll keep the cold and ice and stones out.”

“And don’t leave Iorek.” Lee adds, aiming a finger at Lyra, “There’s Tartars out there.”

“I will bring her back.” Iorek assures them, lifting a paw to help Lyra climb aboard. “I won’t be gentle.” He warns her.

“You two be good to each other, alright? Be careful.” Lee calls after them as Iorek pads away. Neither of them take their eyes off the bear. “You do like her, that was your favourite scarf. I got you that.”

“I’m not the only one going soft, Lee.” Kit points out quietly. Eli’s tail wraps around her ankle. Kit shakes her head. “Now, where is that sweater? I’ve been wearing it for three days but this morning it was gone…” Lee’s hand goes up to the back of his neck to try and hide the high neck of the jumper he’s wearing under his jacket, but Kit catches it, “Lee Scoresby, you- _ ” _

***

Kit pulls the sleeve of her newly-retrieved jumper over her hand to take a pot off the fire. It’s been a long, long time since she’s had eggs of any kind, and she’s rather looking forward to it.

“They’re just eggs, Kit. Boiled eggs.” Eli reminds her.

“Oh shush, you’re excited too.”

“Excited? Over eggs?”

“Yes, Eli, over eggs.” Kit tells him, pushing herself up to scoop the pair of eggs out of the pan. She drops them in the snow and rolls them around for a moment until they’re cool enough for her to pick up and chip away at. “I’m happy, I can be excited. I’m happy  _ here _ . With Lee and Iorek and the Gyptians. And Lyra.” It sounds like she’s trying to justify something. There’s a niggling, familiar voice in the back of her head.

“It feels nice, don’t it? Having more than just Lee?”

“But that’s selfish…” The end of Kit’s sentence trails off. Eli lets the silence hang for a moment before he stretches out on the snow, wriggling contentedly.

“I like it here too, Kit. Ma is a good person. They’re all good people. Good pay, good food, a good cause and good people. You don’t have to feel bad for enjoying that.” Eli rolls over onto his back to stare up at the stars, but Kit has all but forgotten her boiled egg. The odd little fizzy feeling of excitement has dissipated. She feels guilty and Eli is trying to counteract that. Eli rolls back over, rubs his head into Kit’s hand. “Eat your eggs, Kit. Eggs are good too.”

Kit starts peeling at the shell of her egg again, her breath steaming in the cold air. Her nose feels like a marble of ice, and she shifts so that she sits on top of her feet. Around her, all the other Gyptians have settled down to their own dinners. She doesn’t know where Lee’s gone, and Lyra and Iorek are still gone. Kit is alone with her soul. Neither she or her daemon speak as Kit eats her hard-boiled eggs, but her eyes are burning with unshed tears.

Maybe an hour after Kit is finished eating, she’s still sitting in the same spot, her eyes still hot and stingy. Her eyes have been fixed on a distant tent for half an hour or more, but she doesn’t realise it. One of her feet has fallen asleep. The stumps where her right pinkie and left index fingers should be ache more than the rest of her, but she takes no notice. Takes no notice of anything until a new feeling washes over her. Something not unlike dread. 

“Ma!” Kit is on her feet in a moment, stumbling towards where Ma Costa and Tony are huddled around their fire.

“Kit? Kit, have you been-”

“Is Lyra back yet?” Kit blurts.

“No, no, she-”

“Where’s Lord Faa? Where’s Kaisa?”

“Kit?” Hester’s voice. Hester. Relief for a brief moment, “Kit, what’s happened?” Hester asks, hopping closer to Eli. His ears are flat, his tail bushed out.

“Something’s wrong. I need to speak to Kaisa!” Kit yells the last part into the night, knowing that wherever the witch’s daemon is, he’ll hear her.

“Kit, what the hell-” Lee’s caught up with Hester.

“Something’s  _ wrong _ . I don’t know, I don’t…” She can’t form the words. She hears the flap of wings. “Kaisa, tell me-”

“I feel it too, child.”

“Feel  _ what _ , for star’s sake?” Lee demands as Ma rises to her feet.

“Something’s wrong, and it’s coming this way.”

A bird call pierces through the heavy, uncomfortable silence that had fallen, and all heads turn. Iorek is back. Lyra is back. And…

“Billy? Is that my Billy!” Ma’s already crying as a little boy who can’t be more than seven is helped down from Iorek’s back. “Where’s Ratter, where’s his daemon?  _ Is that my Billy? _ ” The boy wobbles when he’s set onto his feet. “Billy, where’s Ratter?” The boy falls as Kit’s heart drops. Billy Costa has no daemon.

Deafening silence fills Kit’s ears as Ma lifts her younger son, carries him into a tent. Her sobs are the only sound to be heard. Everyone else has been stuck dumb by the shock of it. Everyone but Lee. Lyra had tried to go after Ma and Tony, but he’d stopped her. Kit doesn’t hear what he says, doesn’t hear anything until Lyra speaks,

“He was...he was without his daemon. Like a ghost.” Lyra’s voice is brittle, as if she’s already been crying, “The alethiometer was right. It was like...like he wasn’t there. Like he couldn’t even hear me.” Lyra. Lyra is too young for this.

“This must be what they do, this is what they take.” Lee says. His voice is level, but Hester’s ears are quivering. Eli is standing stock-still, like his human.

“It’s horrible.” Lyra croaks out.

“It’s worse than death.” Kit says the words without thinking.

“Why would they take someone’s daemon?”

“It’s about control, isn’t it? Because if you can remove someone’s soul, you can do anything.” Lee explains, still calm while Kit’s shoulders are inching their way up to her ears, her hands balling into fists. That burning feeling behind her eyes is back. She doesn’t ever register Iorek shuffling away. “Hey. You did a brave thing, kid. A good thing. I am proud of you.” Lee tells her. This is what makes Kit turn. She crouches in front of Lyra, holding onto her hands.

“You did the right thing, Lyra. You found Billy. You  _ will  _ find Roger. Lee’s right to be proud of you. I am too. You did good. Now we’re going to get you into the tent and get you warmed up, alright?” Kit sniffs loudly, waits for Lyra to nod before she stands again. Kit keeps her hands on Lyra’s shoulder as she guides her away.

***

Lee doesn’t want to wake either of them up. Wishes he didn’t have to. Eli lies at Lyra’s feet, curled around stoat-formed Pan. He can’t see Lyra’s face, but Kit always looks at her most peaceful asleep. He knows that there are tear tracks on both of their faces. Kit had been near tears before Lyra had come back, but when Lee had asked why, all she’d said was, “Eggs.”

“Kit. Kit. C’mon, Kit.”

“I don’t want to.” Kit replies, her face screwing up.

“You gotta.”

“Shit.”

“Yep.”

Kit has never experienced a Gyptian funeral before, and she wishes she didn’t have to experience this one. Billy Costa had been seven years old. He didn’t stand a chance out there on his own. Lee and Kit stand, watching, waiting, as Lyra steps towards the pyre Billy’s little body has been laid on. Ma Costa watches the girl as she lifts the blanket, looks at the little boy’s face. Both of them stand as John Faa and Farder Coram approach them, Lyra turning to Ma to be held. Kit is close enough to hear the words exchanged between Lord Faa and Ma Costa.

“Now we know what terrible wickedness these people are capable of. Now we can see our duty plainer than ever. We have to fight.”

“We have to kill.”

Ma lets go of Lyra, who turns and shuffles slowly away from the pyre. When she reaches Kit and Lee, Kit’s arms are already open, pulling the girl close to her. At the touch, Lyra’s face crumples and everything she’d been holding onto since she had returned spills out in tears. Kit can’t remember the last time a child had hugged her, cried in front of her. Lyra can’t remember the last time she’d turned to an adult for this kind of comfort, this kind of release. Kit pulls her closer, her head bent over Lyra’s. She can feel her own scarf beneath her fingers, knows Eli is pushing himself against Lyra’s legs to support them.

“Ma’s right. Kill the buggers. They deserve it.” Kit’s words are harsh, her tone hard as her chin wobbles and tears spill over. Lee’s head rests against hers as his own arm goes around Lyra, a familiar gesture of comfort usually shared between himself and his daemon. The Gyptians have formed a semi-circle around the pyre, a semi-circle of solemn faces most likely holding back tears. Billy wasn’t just Ma’s son. He was a son to all of them.

After several minutes, Lyra breaks the little huddle to wipe angrily at her tears, as if she’s ashamed of them. She sandwiches herself in between Lee and Kit to watch Ma light the pyre as everyone pulls their hats off, the universal symbol of respect at a funeral. Ma breaks down into sobs, has to lean on Tony as all the Gyptians around Lee, Lyra and Kit start to hum the same tune. None of them know the words, so the three of them stand in silence. This is not how funerals are done in Texas. Lyra is as stiff as the snow around them, refusing to show the weakness she sees crying to be. Unbeknownst to her, the adults either side of her are doing the same thing.

No one moves until the fire dies. Lyra is almost dropping from exhausting, but she’s fighting sleep. Eli picks up stoat-formed Pan as gently as if he were his own kitten as Lee wraps an arm around Kit, resting a hand on Lyra’s shoulder. In the tent, Lyra sits between them. Hester hops to the mouth of the tent to keep some kind of watch. Lyra’s head falls onto Lee’s shoulder, and Kit’s hand goes to the girl’s hair. There’s silence for what feels like too long.

“Once upon a time, there was a man who lived on the moon.” Kit blurts. Lee frowns at her, confused, but Lyra doesn’t move. Kit repeats herself, “Once upon a time, there was a man who lived on the moon.”

“He didn’t always live on the moon. He used to live on Earth, but on Earth he had no family, no friends. He was lonely. And every night he would look up at the moon and think to himself,  _ If I’m lonely down here, there must be people lonely up there. _ The man worked and worked and built a special blimp that he could sail through the clouds and past the stars to land on the moon…”

By the time Kit is halfway through the story, Lyra has slid down onto the floor, asleep. Kit keeps going, but falters at a certain point and looks to Lee, who had been watching her since Lyra fell asleep.

“Man on the moon. Not quite how Ma used to tell it.” He says after a moment.

“I couldn’t remember all the words.”

“You didn’t give it an ending.”

“We never stayed awake long enough for an ending.”

“True.” Lee hesitates before asking, “Since when did you like kids enough to tell ‘em bedtime stories?”

“Since when did you?” Kit counters pointedly, but then she takes her hand away from Lyra’s hair. “I know. This is just another job worth far more than the gold they’re givin’ us. It’s not like I’m getting attached or anything-”

“No. No, Kit, I don’t think it is.” Lee interrupts, and Kit frowns at him. “Whatever this is...it is so much bigger than us. I know we like to tease the Magesterium, but this...this is fightin’ ‘em head-on.”

“They deserve it, Lee. What they’re doin’,” Kit doesn’t want to have to say it again, “it ain’t  _ right _ .”

“That’s true too.” Is all Lee says. Words aren’t really needed beyond that point. They’re thinking with the same mind. This is a fight they’ll see through to the end.

***

Lyra wakes up at the sound of Pan’s voice. Her eyes open to see Kit’s face. For the first time since she’d met her, Kit’s brow isn’t furrowed. She looks at peace, one of her hands reaching out over Lyra’s head. Lyra turns her head to see Lee still asleep too, though he’s wriggled halfway out of his blanket.

“I  _ heard _ something, Lyra.” Pan reminds her. Whatever it was, it’s got him worked up. Lyra crawls out of the tent and pulls her hat on. She wanders towards where a tin teapot still dangles over a dead fire, but she doesn’t see anything. Pulling her gloves on, Lyra turns in a circle. At least, she starts to turn. She stops when she notices a man lying on the ground, and in an instant knows he’s dead. She registers some kind of noise behind her, but she can’t move. Something heavy slams into her head, and Lyra doesn’t know anything anymore.

A few hours later, the breeze through the still-open flap of the tent gets too cold for Kit to ignore anymore. Lee had pulled off her blanket and covered his head with it a while ago, and she’s been getting colder and colder since. She registers that Lyra is no longer lying in the space between herself and her friend, and mutters.

“Gee, Lyra, thanks for closin’ door after yourself.” Kit’s words come out fluffy, not fully formed. She reaches out, pulls the flap shut and tugs her blanket off Lee, shuffling closer to him in an effort to find more warmth. She’s in that odd limbo where her eyes are too heavy to keep open but she isn’t fully asleep when Eli sticks his head out under the now-closed flap of the tent.

“Kit!”

“Wha? Eli, ‘s too early.”

“There’re bodies.”

“Bodies?!” Kit sits up as she asks the question, but Eli’s already wiggled out of the tent. Kit can feel the cold of the snow on her feet. She pokes Lee’s shoulder. Eli comes back, a red glove in his mouth. Lyra’s glove. “No. Lee. Lee!”

“‘M asleep.”

“Lyra’s gone.”

“Huh?”

“ _ Lyra’s gone _ . Eli says there are bodies outside.”

“Kit, what’re you-” Kit huffs and rips the tent open, crawling out into the snow without her outerlayers. Eli’s right. Directly across from their tent is a dead Gyptian man. Some other Gyptians are awake, crowding around the body. His wife is crying. The words  _ Tartar  _ and  _ Gobbler _ are being thrown around. Kit reaches back and pulls at Lee’s foot.

“Lee, the Tartars found us.” She tells him. He uses her shoulder to pull himself upright, his face sticking out of the tent next to hers. A Gyptian sees them then, calls out to them,

“Where’s the girl?”

Kit knows the answer. It’s a terrible answer. But if the Tartars have been here...

“Bolvanger.”


	3. Kiddos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Gyptians set out for Bolvangar to avenge their people. After releasing the children and destroying the compound, Kit, Lee, Lyra, Roger and Iorek start the three-day balloon ride to find Asriel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, we're upgrading to Graphic Descriptions of Violence because they *do* get down to some murdering and Kit gets another finger cut off and there are descriptions of both of these things that may make some readers uncomfortable
> 
> Also, yes, I am terrible at writing fight/action scenes and there may be clunky dialogue here and there

The Gobblers have taken the Gyptians’ own. Killed their own. The Gyptians are a peaceful enough people, but this means war. A war that the mothers are itching for, and have been since their children had been stolen.

“They have taken our people. Our children. They have  _ severed their daemons  _ and murdered them. We will stand for peace no longer. The Gobblers have made an act of war, and we will respond in kind!” Lord Faa calls out to his people, and they respond as one, with an anguished yell. 

“There aren’ enough of us.” Lee mutters nervously beneath the roaring Gyptians, fidgeting. “Even with Iorek-”

“We’ll have the witches.” Kit tells him quietly, reaching for his hand.

“You sure ‘bout that?”

“The witches will come.” Kit says firmly. “We’ll just have to hold on until they do.”

“Bolvanger cannot be far, not if the Tartars made it here and back without sleds or provisions. With luck, we will reach the place before night falls.”

Everything in the camp is packed up and on sleds in an hour. Iorek is harnessed to the heaviest of them to pull it while Kit and Lee take charge of their balloon, letting it carefully, slowly, slide down the snow-covered hill.

The sun rises as the Gyptians march up another hill, their best trackers at the head of their caravan, following the tracks the Tartars left behind. No one asks for a rest or for food, and no one talks. Each face is set with the same grim determination, anger etched into every line. Ma Costa marches at the front with John Faa. She falters every so often, as her grief gets the better of her, but each time she stiffens her resolve and picks up the pace again. Kit refuses to let Tony Costa take her share of the balloon’s weight, but he doesn’t stray far away from them. His newly-settled daemon, Lyuba, is restless, flitting from his shoulder to the various sleds to hovering in the air. Only a few weeks ago he’d gone through the Gyptian settling ceremony. He should be floating on the clouds like his daemon, but instead his shoulders are hunched as he throws himself into work whether he’s fit for it or not, desperate for a distraction.

The Gyptians make their way slowly, slowly down the other side of the hill and begin the climb up another as the sun sets. It’s too beautiful for a day so terrible. Shades of gold and purple that no artist could ever truly replicate slowly spreading across the horizon, reaching out to the stars that are twinkling into sight one by one, the burning orange semi-circle of the sun almost seeming to dissolve into the colours. The sun disappears in a blink, the colours fading to navy blue in minutes, leaving the moon casting silver light on everything below. Breath rises like fog into the air as odd shadows form on the faces of the travellers. No, not travellers anymore. An army.

The army stops when it reaches the top of the hill. Ahead of them isn’t another snow-covered valley. Ahead of them is a drop down to something too far away for the moon to reach. Another cliff rises to the left of them. The only way across is a ledge along the length of the cliff, connecting the mountain the Gyptians are on to the next. A ledge wide enough for three or four men to walk side-by-side and only have one of them have a foot dangling off the edge. This is the way to Bolvangar. It’s the only choice they have, and it is a choice they will willingly take.

They travel with the sleds single-file, two or three people behind each one. The Gyptians are prepared for the breaks in the ledge, putting down planks for the sleds to slide across. Iorek opted to clamber up the mountain, more than capable of it. Part of Lee would honestly much rather setting up the balloon to fly over the chasm, but he’s aware that flying to Bolvangar would kind of eliminate the element of surprise they still have. Kit hops to the other side of the break in the ledge, Eli leaping after her, so that she and Lee can put the planks down and pull the first sled along by way of ropes attached to the front. How they ended up at the head of the procession, they’re not quite sure. For a brief moment, Kit considers the possibility that it’s because they aren’t Gyptians and so are seen as expendable. Or maybe it’s just because neither of them have any fear for heights. Quite the opposite. Whereas the Gyptians are out of their depths so high up, Kit and Lee feel at home.

A plank shifts and falls, bouncing off either side of the break. The sled tips, only stopped by Lee and three other Gyptian men. Tony Costa’s foot slips with the plank and out of pure instinct, he steps backward onto nothing. Ma screams, and the sound of it resounds across the chasm. Kit’s hand flies out, but she isn’t prepared for Tony’s weight and she’s almost immediately pulled over the edge with him. There’s a moment there where time seems to speed up: Tony and Kit falling off the cliff, the split-second decisions made by the Gyptians choosing between the sled and one of their own. They would sacrifice the sled for Tony Costa. Lee already has, dropping the ropes and grabbing the bit of Kit closest to him.

Ma is still screaming as her son is pulled back onto solid ground and hoisted onto her feet. She breaks down into sobs, the sudden, shocking possibility of losing another child finally shattering the guard she had been wearing all day.

“Kit. Kit!” Lee turns her face to his. “Kit, you good?”

“Fine. Yep. Good.” Kit absent-mindedly pats the hand that’s resting against her cheek. Hester leans against Eli, who had been pressing himself so hard against the stone of the cliff-face that it almost hurt. “Just fallin’ off a cliff, y’know.” It doesn’t feel quite real yet. It might never feel quite real. Still, she doesn’t get to turn and keep walking until she nods and again says, “I’m fine. Let’s go. Gotta beat Iorek to the other side, right?”

When they reach the other side, John Faa allows rest for the most part of an hour, for Ma to cling to her son and for Kit to sink into a crouch and rest against a rock and stare into space as she processes what had happened. She’d fallen out of the balloon plenty of times, both of them had, but that wasn’t the same as pitching off the edge of a cliff. She hadn’t been scared at all. Hadn’t even realised that she could have died from the fall.

Iorek finds the party soon enough, seeks out the aeronauts, in the darkness of the night almost looking like a living mound of snow. Lee turns away from Kit to address the bear, but once he looks out at their surroundings, whatever he had been planning to say is replaced with,

“There it is.”

Bolvangar. It’s brightly lit up, a glowing halo of white anbaric light around a group of buildings that look to be made of metal rather than bricks. Lyra is down there somewhere. Roger. The people who killed Billy. Who are killing other people, destroying their very souls. The Gobblers.

“Gyptians! We are so close to saving our children, avenging our people, freeing the children of others! But we must make a plan! We can surprise the villains, but surprise is no use if we fall at the first barrier.” John Faa shouts, addressing the group as a whole before turning his attention to individuals, starting with the bear, “Iorek Byrnison, we know Tartars are guarding this place. Will you be our first line of attack and find us a clear path to the heart of the operation?”

“I will, Lord Faa.” Iorek answers, bowing his head in agreement.

“Mr Scoresby, Miss Sanchez, will you accompany him in your balloon?”

“I will.” Kit answers, “We’ve had our disagreements with Tartars in the past. But Lee should go with you. A gun will be of use to you if you’ve gotta use force to get the kids back.”

“Mr Scoresby?”

“I agree with Kit, Lord Faa. I will go with the Gyptians.” Lee nods.

“And what of the witches?” A Gyptian calls out from the crowd. Kaisa had left them before they had found Lyra missing.

“We must believe that they see this battle as one they should fight.” Farder Coram rumbles from John Faa’s side.

“Whether the witches come or not, we will prevail. We  _ will  _ release those children and end this operation.” Faa waits for a response from the Gyptians before yelling, “For Billy!”

The sound of Billy’s name rises up to the clouds, propelled by over a hundred voices full of anger.

***

Lyra wasn’t sure exactly what would happen if she fritzed the horrible machine, but it seems to be prompting all the little explosions across the compound. She’s just trying to find Roger, find the other kids, find another way out. Her head is turned, and she doesn’t see the Tartar man until she barrels into him. He grabs her, lifting her off the ground and yelling in a harsh language she doesn’t understand. Lyra is not the sort of child who gets scared at these sorts of threats of danger. She is the kind of child who starts kicking and screaming until the Tartar has no choice but to let her go. As he stumbles, hits the wall, Lyra hears more shouting behind her. She registers another Tartar man and his white-wolf daemon before he is whipped up into the air and tossed away like a rag doll. Iorek Byrnison pads along one of the roof-bridges that connect all of the buildings.

“What took you so long?” Lyra calls to him.

“It’s good to see you too, Lyra.” Iorek replies gruffly before moving on. Lyra hears the first Tartar stirring behind her and turns, but before she can even raise her fists something dark in a long coat jumps down from the roof of a building and lands on him, the silver gleam of a knife sinking into his chest. Kit Sanchez pulls the knife out, turns and throws it. It whistles past Lyra’s ear, and she hears the thump of another body behind her.

“Hey, kiddo. How’re you holdin’ up?” Kit cracks a smile for the girl.

“I ‘ent hurt.”

“Good. Did you find Roger?” Kit asks, marching towards the dead Tartar as the last of his daemon dissipates and yanking her knife out from in between his eyes. Lyra nods, trying not to look at the body. “Okay. Go hide. There’s about to be a lotta dead bodies and I don’t want you seeing that, alright?”

“Where’s Lee?”

“He’s inside with Ma, getting the kids.” Kit answers, “Go, Lyra!” She adds before jumping up, grabbing hold of the rooftop walkway and pulling herself up onto it. Lyra turns and runs then, hearing three gunshots before she turns the next corner.

Three Tartars fall, one for each of Kit’s bullets. Iorek has dropped down to the ground, but Kit stays on the rooftops. She can see better here, has the advantage of height over the Tartars who had spilled onto the ground to tackle the Gyptians.  _ Bang, bang, bang, bang _ . Four daemons turn to dust. The Gyptians are doing the best they can with what little weapons they have at their disposal, rage fuelling their strength.

“Is that the best you can do?” A shout comes from Kit’s right, and she catches sight of Lee blocking a Tartar’s axe with his rifle.  _ Bang _ . The Tartar falls with Kit’s last bullet.

“Do you gotta bait ‘em, Scoresby?” Kit asks, crossing the bridge to reach him as he does the same. Lee shrugs before levelling his gun over Kit’s shoulder and firing.

“They get angry enough, their aim ain’t so good.”

“Yeah, but then they wanna kill you more cause you’ve gone and riled ‘em up.” Kit points out, and Lee grins. “I dunno if you should look so proud of that, Scoresby.”

“You seen Lyra?”

“She’s fine.” Kit answers. Her focus shifts as something moves towards them. A Tartar, running full speed across the rooftops with his axe raised. Kit shoulders Lee out of the way, shoving him to the side with one hand and raising her pistol with the other. It clicks. And clicks again. There are no bullets left. Without thinking, Kit lifts her hand as if to stop the axe from falling. She can’t stop it from falling. A familiar sensation rips through Kit’s arm. She’s aware of Lee shouting her name, of cold air stinging her hand. It feels almost as if a needle has been pushed down into her hand through her finger and then pulled out of her forearm. Pain forces an oddly strangled yell from Kit’s throat as Lee launches himself at the Tartar.

Something sharp and black flies through the air, flies through the Tartar’s head. Kit almost thinks she sees smoke, smoke in human form, attacking the people of Bolvangar. Every single one of them falls dead. The smoke is gone as quickly as it came.

“Serafina.” Lee mumbles, though no one hears him. Kit moves to cradle her hand to her chest, Eli yowling from the pain though his human doesn’t make a sound, but Lee pulls at it, forces her to uncurl her fingers. What fingers she has left. The stump of her pinkie had healed decades ago, but there’s a gap next to it, a gap that’s bleeding freely. Kit’s ring finger is gone.

“Fuck.  _ Fuck _ , Sanchez, what’d you do that for?”

“He was gonna kill you, Lee.”

“D’you think I’d rather  _ you  _ dead?”

“I ain’t gonna die.” Kit tells him. There isn’t any pain anymore, the damage too severe for Kit’s brain to process at that moment. All she can feel is the sting of the cold. The scarf is being pulled from around her neck and wound about her arm, forming a makeshift sling. “Are you hurt?”

“ _ Hellcats _ , Kit!”

“ _ Are you hurt? _ ”

“Got an axe to the leg a couple minutes ago, but it’s fine.” Kit notices the patch of blood as he mentions it, “‘M more worried about-”

“My hand can wait until we get back onto the balloon. We gotta get down.”

Kit manages, somehow, to get back onto the ground with Lee’s help. All the Gyptians seem to have gathered in the central clearing of the compound, so they head there. As they reach the clearing, silence falls. A little boy is leading a group of children out of one of the buildings. The little boy is wearing a snowsuit and hat like Billy had been. All the other children are wrapped in red blankets with shaved heads. None of the children in blankets have daemons. Like Billy. These are the severed children. Children without souls, but children nonetheless. Scared, confused children, staring up at strangers and down at dead bodies. 

Three Gyptian men move first, each reaching out to a child and gently pulling them into hugs. Ma moves between them, her hands ghosting the tops of the children’s heads before she notices a little boy crying and wraps her arms around him. Lee moves too, crouching in front of the little girl that had been staring at him. Kit stands still for a moment. She doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know how to be soft and comforting. Some small part of her had managed to reach out to Lyra the night before, but she’d been copying things she’d seen Lee do before, had been parroting his words.

There’s a boy, a single boy without a comforter. He can’t be more than eleven years old.

“What’s your name?” Kit asks. She has to repeat herself before he answers.

“Edward.” He’s from Brytain, like Lyra, but his voice indicates he’s of higher class than her. Far higher. Had his parents not been looking for him, Kit wonders. Or had they given him up willingly? He stares blankly at the snow, at the Tartar lying there. Kit steps over the body, crouches in front of the boy so she’s level with him.

“You’re safe now. These are the Gyptians. They’ll look after you, take you back to your parents.”

“But this is the best place I could possibly be.” Edward states. His words are robotic, his eyes unfocused. Kit pulls him sharply towards her, letting his head tip onto her shoulder as her eyes burn with tears. Those words are familiar. Dangerous. He’s repeating something he’s been told over and over again like they’re the only words he knows.

“No, it isn’t, kiddo. Believe me, it isn’t. The Gyptians are safe, okay? The Gyptians are safe.” Kit stands, taking the boy with her. He doesn’t react when his feet leave the ground. Some of the Gyptians have formed a huddle around the group of severed children. Farder Coram stands just outside the circle, a girl who couldn't have been older than Billy when her daemon was severed asleep in his arms. He shifts her to one side and holds his now-free arm out to Kit.

“Mr Scoresby is preparing your balloon. I’ll take the boy.”

“Where are we going?”

“To find Lord Asriel.”

Kit reaches the balloon as Lee jumps down from checking the gas.

“Thought you hurt your leg?” Kit says, stepping into the basket and towards Iorek as Lee winces.

“And I said it wasn’t that bad.” Lee answers.

“I’m still gonna take a look at it, Scoresby.” She tells him, voice sharp.

“What, you’re mad at me now?”

“We’ll see.” Kit replies as Iorek gives one of his odd half-laughs.

“Is this the balloon driver?” A small voice behind them asks. A boy standing next to Lyra, the one who had found the severed children. Roger Parslow.

“I’m an aeronaut kid, Lee Scoresby.” Lee answers rather sharply.

“Kit Sanchez.” Kit waves from where she sits next to the bear.

“And this is…” Roger asks, gesturing towards said bear.

“This is Iorek.” Lyra smiles.

“This is Iorek.” Roger repeats, “He just doesn’t look like how I imagined him.”

“You were hoping for better looking? Weren’t we all?” Lee asks, pushing past Roger to secure the door of the balloon.

“You talkin’ about yourself or the bear, Scoresby?” Kit asks. Lee ignores this and turns to the boy again,

“You alright with heights, Roger?”

“Not really.” Roger answers.

“You’ll learn to be.” Lee tells him.

“Balloon driver.” Kit points out, pushing herself to her feet and letting her hand land on Lee’s shoulder as he shouts to the Gyptians to release the balloon. As they start to rise, Lee catches hold of Kit,

“And you are gonna let me take a look at that hand once we’re level, hear me?”

“Sure, Ma, sure.” Kit answers, rolling her eyes.

***

The kids lean against Iorek and each other as Lyra tells the story of her travels since he had been taken. The balloon is level now, floating quite happily among the clouds. Lee sinks to the floor of the basket and stretches his legs out, knocking Kit’s knee with his foot as he reaches for the little box that holds their healing supplies. Kit peels off her jumper and chucks it over Lee’s head. The movement catches the kids’ eyes, and a morbidly curious part of them watches as Kit unwraps her blood-soaked scarf from around her hand.

“Gonna have to clean it, Kit, Tartars don’t sterilise their axes between murders.” Lee tells her.

“What are you going to clean it with?” Roger asks. He hadn’t seen any water anywhere on the balloon.

“Oh, kiddo, there’s always alcohol on board.” Kit tells him, scooping up a bottle that had been rolling towards her and pulling the cork out with her teeth. “Say goodbye to the Trollesund whiskey.” She mock-salutes with the bottle and drinks from it before tipping about a third of its contents onto her arm.

“Should you really use whiskey?” Lyra asks.

“Well, do you have anything better?” Kit asks through gritted teeth. Eli is scratching the floor of the basket again. Lee takes her hand and pulls at it until her arm rests against his leg. Lyra looks at the cut on Kit’s arm as Lee wipes at it with the sleeve of her discarded jumper, but soon the sight of it makes her uncomfortable and her eyes catch onto something else on Kit’s shoulder. A trail of small bumps that must start on her back but branch out over her shoulders and down her arms. They almost look like the imprints of plants, or…

“Is that cloudpine?” Lyra asks, and all conversation and movement between Kit and Lee stops. Their daemons stare at her.

“How do you know what cloudpine looks like, kid?” Lee asks quietly, watching Kit.

“In Trollesund I spoke to the witches’ consul. He had a load of jars in his basement, they all had cloudpine in ‘em.” Lyra answers, confused, “He told me every witch has cloudpine in their back, that it’s unique to every witch.”

“Ah, Doctor Lanselius. Well, calls himself a doctor.” Kit mutters darkly, and neither of the children hear her next words, which is probably a good thing.

“You a witch then?” Roger asks, his head tilting to the side.

“My ma was a witch. I ain’t one and I never will be.” Kit says firmly, while Eli leans into Hester. It’s a clear indication of the end of the conversation.

“What d’you mean you aren’t a witch?” Roger asks.

“Look, kid-”

“Lee.” Kit cuts in. His gaze shifts back to her, but Kit nods. Lee picks up a needle and makes a start on stitching her arm. “When you’re a witch’s daughter, she’s supposed to come find you the day your daemon settles. She claims you as her daughter and takes you back to her clan to become a witch. My ma never did that.” This isn’t the truth and Lee knows it, but he’s not going to correct her. “So I’ve got the cloudpine but I can’t do anythin’ with it because the rituals were never done.”

“But-”

“We don’t talk about it, kiddo.”

“Say, Roger, we’ve never been to Albion. Tell us about Oxford. Jordan College, right?” Lee asks, providing a distraction that Roger latches onto and runs with.

***

The children have talked themselves to sleep by the time Lee has bandaged Kit’s hand and Kit has cleaned and stitched up Lee’s leg. Each of them drops their jacket over a child. Kit slings her legs over the edge of the balloon and settles there, holding the rail above her head with her good hand.

“Couple hours ago you fell off a cliff, how’re you gonna do that?” Lee asks, gesturing towards Kit. He taps at a lamp until it flickers on.

“The same way you do.” She says.

“Kit.”

“Lee.”

“Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Oh, I dunno. This was just supposed to be another job. We found out the Magesterium was cutting out people’s souls, the Gyptians lost their kids and then we lost Lyra, you fell off a cliff, we found the bastards, killed a lot of ‘em by the way, you  _ lost another finger _ -”

“Lee.” Kit turns, “Stop talking. Just stop.” Kit’s hands land on his shoulders. “I know we killed ‘em. I know you didn’t want to. We had to. It was their lives or the kids. You  _ saved  _ lives, Lee Scoresby. Countless lives.” She hugs her friend to her, a hand going to his hair, “Sure, it cost me a finger. I’m sure that little detail’ll sink in once it starts hurtin’ again. But we did the right thing. There airen’t gonna be anymore Billy Costas.” Lee mumbles something against Kit’s shoulder and she lifts her chin to rest on top of Lee’s head as she looks towards the sleeping girl, “Yeah. Here’s hopin’ Lyra’s pa’s a better man than either of ours were.”


	4. Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Found Family Fun Bonding time, and then just *angst*
> 
> Probably the last Season One chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohhh, it is hella late and I am very sleep deprived but I thought why the hell not and published this. Please point out any mistakes I may have made. There are a couple little bits I'm unsure of? I hope you...enjoy? It'll be a couple weeks before the next chapter is out, and that chapter will probably correspond with 2x01

Roger reckons he’s the first one to wake up. He thinks the sun must have risen, but he isn’t sure of what time it must be. Panels of oilcloth cover the space between the balloon and its basket. As he stands up, Lyra rolls away from him, taking one of the aeronaut’s coats with her. The aeronauts themselves are a tangle of limbs curled around the wooden pole in the center of the basket, as close to the heaters as they can get. The little boy notes that before she had fallen asleep, the woman had found a shirt to pull on that hid the cloudpine across her back, but not the odd little sprays of it across her collarbones that looked more like scars than flowers. Roger pushes his arms into the sleeves of the long jacket that had been lying on top of him as he slept and wonders if it belongs to the man or the woman. 

Bright light spills onto the floor of the basket, and Roger turns. He wasn’t the first one to wake up. The bear, Iorek, has his head sticking out between two pieces of cloth.

“How long have you been awake?” Roger asks.

“I did not sleep once night fell.” The bear replies, his voice carrying clearly through the air. He pulls his head back into the balloon and nods towards the sleeping adults as the woman’s lynx daemon rolls onto his back. “They needed rest. And they won’t wake up quickly.”

“How long will it take to get to Lord Asriel?” Roger asks.

“I don’t know much about air travel, child, but I believe Lee estimated two days of flight.”

“Is she really a witch’s daughter?” Roger’s voice falls to a whisper as he asks, knowing that if the adults were awake he would be crossing some sort of invisible line.

“Kit’s story is not mine to tell.” Iorek says, measuring each word carefully.

“But...but you’re an armoured bear. Why are you with them instead of with all the other bears?”

“Lee and Kit are good friends. They saved my life, and so I saved theirs in return, and so they saved mine, and so the cycle goes around over and over again. I owe them a debt, as I do Lyra.”

“What’ll you do after we see Lord Asriel?”

“I will stay with Kit and Lee.” Iorek answers without the impatience or vagueness of the aeronauts. Kit moves to mirror her daemon, rolling onto her back. Her eyes creak open, but it is her daemon who speaks for her,

“Go back to sleep, kiddo.”

***

By the time Kit and Lee do fully wake up, Roger and Lyra have both drained a few canteens of water each and Iorek has fished a burlap bag full of fruit out of one of the nets attached to the side of the basket. Roger had seen an orange and latched onto it, but Lyra had picked up a smooth, oddly shaped thing that was marbled green and orange and red. Before she can sink her teeth into it, a hand reaches between the two children and takes the fruit from Lyra.

“You never seen a mango, Lyra?” Kit asks, “Don’t suppose you would’ve done.” She throws it to Lee, who catches it without looking and takes a knife to it.

“What is it?”

“Fruit. Grows in India, ‘s where we were before we headed to Trollesund. Gotta say, the climate was much more agreeable there.” Kit explains, eyeing Roger. He’s still wearing her jacket, even though it practically drowns him. She feels her hat being lifted off her head and something soft is pushed down over her eyes. The kids start laughing as Kit pushes the trapper hat Lee had borrowed from the Gyptians out of her eyes. He’d put it on her backwards. She tips her head back and sees that Lee has taken her wide-brimmed hat and put it on top of his own, and she laughs too. Lee presents each of the children with half of the mango, each half now small, soft chunks held in the green-skin-turned-bowl. Kit swipes a cube of mango from Roger’s half.

“Iorek, you hungry?” Lee asks as he sits down, stretching his leg out behind Kit. Iorek shakes his head and settles on the floor behind the children, resting his chin on the edge of the basket so that he can look out at their surroundings. Kit nabs an apple from the sack, patting Lee’s knee with her other hand.

“How’s the leg?” She asks as Roger makes himself a smile out of an orange segment.

“Stiff. How’s the hand?”

“Sore.” Kit replies, and Lee nods.

“Guess I’ll be stuck doin’ your bootlaces for a while, huh?”

“Among other things.” Kit points out. Lyra snorts with laughter, and their attention is pulled back to her. She and Roger have found apples for themselves and are trying to split them in half with their hands.

“Oh, we’re havin’ a competition, huh?” Lee asks, taking Kit’s own apple and joining them in their efforts. Kit’s hat falls from its perch on top of his, sending the lot of them into fresh peals of laughter.

About half an hour after their miniature feast, Lyra and Lee are taking great joy in dropping the scraps over the side of the basket. Roger, content after dumping his orange rind, turns to Kit.

“Iorek said it’ll take two days to get to Lord Asriel.”

“Iorek was right. Svalbard ain’t connected to the rest of the continent, it’s an island. We’ll reach the sea before sunset and sail over it through tonight and tomorrow.”

“The sea? We won’t be able to stop then, will we?”

“Nope.” Kit tells him, but then her head turns and she looks at him. “Why? Do we need to stop now?” It’s only then she notices Roger jigging up and down, his legs held together. “ _ Lee?  _ We gotta land!”

***

“Remind me why we never had kids again? I can’t quite put my finger on it.” Lee mutters darkly, arms crossed.

“What, you’d rather he pissed in the balloon? No one’s looking, Roger!” Kit calls the last part out to the small boy. She, Lee and Lyra all have their backs to him.

“No, I just...they drank  _ all  _ of our water.” Lee points out. Hester scratches at her ear irritably while Eli paces in front of the three humans. “Lyra, go fill the canteens with snow, yeah? Only the white stuff!” He picks up the net bag that holds all their now-empty water containers and hands it to her, and Lyra happily wanders off, Iorek padding several steps behind her.

“Yeah, well. Kids. You were the same.”

“Was not.”

“Were too.”

“Was  _ not _ .” If they’d been about thirty years younger, Lee would have stamped on something.

“Were too.” Authority knows how long they would have gone on for if Roger hadn’t come back to them then.

“Where’s Lyra?” He asks. Lee points in the direction Iorek and Lyra had gone in and Roger goes hurtling after them. Kit unwinds her scarf and crouches, her good hand going out to the snow. 

“Make the most of the bathroom break, Scoresby. I’m gonna make a snowpack.”Kit does her best to wrap her scarf tightly around a handful of snow and holds it to her arm. She hesitates for a second before asking, quietly, “Lee?”

“What is it, Kit?”

“D’you think we can trust Asriel Belacqua?”

“I dunno, Kit, I’ve never met the guy. Heard a lot about him since we ran into Lyra though.”

“He wants to research Dust, but so did the Gobblers. I just don’t want to take Lyra there only to find out that he’s doing some kinda horrible experiment too.”

“Well, we trust the kid, right? And she trusts the alethiometer.” Lee reasons. Kit’s hand hits something hard and she frowns, wiping away more snow. Ice. Dark blue and clouded, but ice. Hester hears the little cracks before anyone else, the fear of the sound prompting Lee to pull Kit to her feet.

“Ice. It’s thin and we’re heavy. No telling how much time we’ve got.” Hester reports.

“Iorek!” Lee calls across the snow, “Round up the kids, ‘s time to go! And no more stops till we get to Svalbard.”

***

Lee reckons he’s the last one awake. Kit is leaning against Iorek, both of the children flopped over her legs. Hester shuffles closer to a heater. Roger is still wearing Kit’s greatcoat, and rather than take it off him she had stolen Lee’s. The gap where her finger should be has bled through its dressing. He’d wake her up to look at the stitching, but then Kit would insist on checking on his leg, which is something he does not want her to do. The wind shifts, a warm breeze tickling Hester’s ears.

“Miss Pekkela.” Lee turns to find the witch queen standing on the other side of the basket. He hadn’t heard her. He’d just known.

“Always good to see you in the skies, Mr Scoresby.” Serafina nods. Kaisa flutters over to perch on the edge of the basket behind Lee, looking over Iorek, Kit and the kids. “Your daemon is examining me.” Serafina notes.

“Well, it’s been a while since we’ve seen you.” Hester points out, still staring at the witch.

“Question: What can we expect going forward in the sense of mayhem and chaos?” Lee asks, cutting to the chase rather than exchanging soft words of gratitude. 

“There may be fighting, but you’ve fought before.” Serafina says.

“And gladly. But as the situation grows more complicated, so  _ my  _ situation grows more complicated.” Lee points out.

“The child Lyra is destined to be important. To create and resolve conflict.” Serafina starts, delicately. “She matters more than she can ever know. The fate of more than this world depends on her.”

“Well, Kit and I had a contract with the Gyptians over what was accomplished at Bolvangar.” Lee begins to explain, “This...this seems like a whole new thing. Which requires, if I’m honest, new contracts and new payments-”

“She will need you.”

“You know, a man should have a choice whether to take up arms or not.” Lee tells her. Serafina smiles wryly.

“And you need her.”

“That is not how I expected this conversation to go.” Lee says.

“Is it not?” Serafina asks Lee, and Kit turns to lean against the side of the basket at the same time as he turns away from the witch. Lee’s eyes go to the huddle of humans and bear.

“No, I was hoping you’d find a way of chuckin’ us some danger money, instead you blindsided me, both of us, I think, with...with love.”

“Good.” Serafina says, smiling again, “The polar star will lead you to Asriel. The wind is strong, you’re a capable navigator and you have formidable warriors on board.”

“So it’s me.” Lee starts, “Us. She’s responsible for the fate of everything, and we...Kit and I, we’re responsible...for her?” Lee looks back to Kit. “You know, she was never...I dunno the word.  _ Good _ with kids. She never liked ‘em. But now, with Lyra and Roger…”

“Perhaps she was simply never given the chance to be maternal, Mr Scoresby. As you’ve said yourself, neither of you ever had children.”

“Well, no. If you’d had either of our pas you wouldn’t exactly be plannin’ on startin’ a family either.”

“And yet you have found yourself a family all the same. The world is in your hands, Mr Scoresby. Yours and Kit’s. And I am delighted that it is.” With that, Serafina takes off and disappears into the night. Kaisa stays perched on the edge of the basket.

“Impressive.” Hester mutters.

“Yeah.” Lee replies.

“And they want  _ you  _ on their team?”

“Both of us.”

“Well, I could understand them wanting Kit, she’s one of them, but  _ you _ ?”

“Shut up, Hester.”

Lee had not been the last one awake. Kit had simply had her eyes closed. Now she has swapped places with Lee, sitting on the bench running around the inside of the basket while he lies asleep with the children, hat tipped over his eyes. Kit picks at the bench with her knife, a pattern forming in the wood.

“If you’re gonna talk to me, better hurry it up before I wake Iorek to take over the watch.” Kit says to Kaisa, still perched on the edge of the basket. In an instant, Serafina Pekkela stands beside Kit.

“I trust you heard all that was said.”

“Every word.”

“And you disagree with it.”

“I don’t want no part in any prophecy.”

“Sister-”

“Don’t call me sister.”

“We all have destinies, Kit. Yours and Lee’s is to guide the child to hers.” Serafina settles on the bench beside Kit.

“Look, I care about the kid as much as Lee does, I do, but...She don’t deserve all that weight on her shoulders. And I dunno how we can look after her. We’re nothin’ special, just two runaways from Texas.”

“Kit, my dear, you are far more powerful than you know. I can help you, help you reach your full potential-”

“No.  _ No _ , you can’t just-” Kit’s hands had flown out of their own accord, and her voice freezes as Serafina takes hold of her injured hand. The gentle touch is unexpected.

“I can heal this. With a single, very simple spell. You could too.” Serafina’s voice is as soft as her grip.

“But I can’t do magic. And your spell would be a lifetime too late.” The conversation has drifted away from Lyra, though Kit hasn’t quite realised this.

“If I had known of your existence, I would have come to your aid instantly.”

“Yeah, the empty promises mean the world to me now.”

“Tell me, Kit, in the years we’ve known each other, have I ever abandoned you in your hour of need?”

“No.” Kit admits quietly, her anger cooling.

“And I never will. You  _ can  _ do this, Kit. You and Lee. You will protect the child. Be her guardian angels.”

“But-”

“You  _ are  _ part of the prophecy. You have been chosen.”

“I will not be under the control of any prophecy and you will not guilt me into taking on whatever role it may or may not have assigned me. I should have a choice.”

“Very well. What do you choose?” Serafina asks. Kit looks to Lyra and sighs.

“I’ll look after Lee and the kids as best I can, for as long as I can. Regardless of any goddamn prophecy.”

“A wise decision.” Serafina smiles. Cool air surrounds Kit’s injured hand. “Before I leave you, I must tell you that Mr Scoresby’s leg isn’t healing the way he wants you to think it is.” For a moment, Serafina’s hand rests against Kit’s face. For a moment, Kit has half a mind to lean into it. “I will see you again soon, Miss Sanchez.”

***

The next day passes in an odd, stilted fashion. No one could ever be alone on a hot air balloon with three other people and a bear. Lee’s the same as ever, if anything trying harder for the kids to counteract Kit’s prickly silence. She has neither moved from the bench nor slept, and by now a pattern has been carved across the bench. Lee would bring it up, but he doesn’t particularly want to be threatened with a knife before he’s had breakfast. A rather sparse breakfast at that. Between the two of them, the kids and Iorek, what few rations they’d had when leaving the Gyptians are soon to run out.

Lyra and Roger still prattle on, but Roger is louder than Lyra, and the girl keeps casting wary looks at Kit as if she expects the woman to stand up and slap her if she talks too much. Eli pads towards the kids and Pan jumps up onto Lyra’s now-tense shoulders. Lee plonks himself onto the bench next to Kit and holds out his half-empty plate.

“You gonna eat anything?” Lee asks. Kit shakes her head and stabs her knife into the bench. “Okay...are you gonna tell me what you and Miss Pekkela were talkin’ about last night? She came back to talk to you, didn’t she?”

“She did. We talked about much the same as you did. The kid. The prophecy. How unfair that all is. I mean, you didn’t talk about how unfair that all is, but I did.”

“And that’s why you’re angry, yeah?”

“Gold star for the aeronaut.” Kit mutters, picking at the bench again.

“You know, the broodin’ act is scarin’ the kids.” Lee tells her quietly. This is what makes Kit stop and look up.

“But I ain’t doin’ anything to the kids.” She replies, looking at Lyra and Roger. She remembers then that Lyra had said something about Mrs Coulter not treating her very well. She remembers that she herself would say much the same thing when she was younger. “I…”

“Yeah, I think so too.” Roger looks up at the adults, wondering what the hushed voices are for.

“Well we can’t be having that.” Kit decides after a moment. She drops the knife in favour of swiping bread from Lee’s plate and moving to sit with the children. Her good hand goes to Lyra first, tucking stray hair behind her ear, and then to Roger, rubbing the top of his head. “Right, Lyra. Is there anything else you gotta tell us before we getcha to Asriel? Cause I think I can see Svalbard over there in the distance.”

“Where?” Roger asks, jumping to his feet and going to the edge of the basket, his daemon Salcilia, terrier-shaped, hopping up onto the bench to be able to see. Lyra watches him, but then looks back to Kit worriedly.

“Why are you angry?” She asks quietly, warily.

“Lee and I were talkin’ to Serafina Pekkela last night, that’s all. I don’t get on well with witches.” Kit answers. Lyra still looks worried, and Kit reaches out to her again, somewhat mirroring how Serafina had reached out to her the night before, “Don’t worry, kiddo, I’m not angry at you. You’ve done nothing wrong. Now, is there anything else I should know?” Lyra watches Kit carefully for a moment, as if waiting to see the crack of a lie. When she doesn’t, she launches into yet another babbling rant about everything that has ever happened in her life

***

It takes Kit a long time to finally work her discussion with Serafina out of her system, but by sunset, everyone has fully relaxed again. It takes her an even longer time to fall asleep, but eventually her weight shifts onto Lee, her head tipping onto his shoulder and her hat falling off altogether. His own head is nodding, in that odd limbo where he is asleep but his daemon is awake. A low rumble of thunder heard through Hester’s ears is enough to wake him up. The jolt shifts Kit, waking her up too.

“Wha…”

“Just thunder, Sanchez.”

“Thundah?”

“But what’s a-clickin’?” Eli asks.

“Clickin’?” Lee repeats as Kit rubs at her eyes and Eli pads towards what is fondly called the ‘helm’ by the aeronauts. 

“Compass’s goin’ nuts.” Eli says, sniffing around it.

“Must be over Svalbard now. Close to the Pole.” Hester replies.

“But wassat?” Eli asks, moving towards another part of the balloon. A rope is clicking around its tether. A soft click signals the moment Kit wakes up fully, the click of her pistol.

“That rope don’t move unless summat’s pullin’ it.” Kit mutters. There’s another low rumble of thunder and a different noise that sounds distinctly animalistic. Some odd, grey shape passes the gap between oilcloth and metal pole. “Lee. Get the kids.” Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Lyra and Roger sitting up and Lee signalling for quiet with his gun rather than his finger. Kit steps forwards slowly, moving the panel of cloth to the side with the muzzle of her pistol. She shifts so that she can see through the gap without exposing any of her hand or arm. “Nothin’ there…”

A shrieking...thing screams into the balloon, headed for the kids. Before either of the adults can shoot or shout, Iorek Byrnison has launched himself at the creature and thrown it out of the balloon, roaring into the night.

“The  _ hell  _ was that?” Kit yells.

“Cliffghasts!” Iorek shouts in reply. There’s more screeching. Now they’ve made noise and defended themselves, they’ve made themselves a target. Kit steps backwards from the edge of the balloon and her shoulder hits Lee’s. He turns until his back presses against hers.

“This is familiar.” Lee mutters, lifting his gun.

“Ain’t it just.” Kit replies, mirroring him, “Eyes on the prize, Mr Scoresby.”

“Makin’ every shot count, Miss Sanchez.”

It’s like clockwork, the way they fall into battle. Shots fired almost in unison, moving with and around each other without a word as if they’ve been fighting like this all their lives. In a way, they have. Iorek goes from one open panel to another, snapping and swiping at any cliffghast that looks as if it’s going to try and attack either of the children. Lyra has taken hold of Roger and wrapped herself around him, her arms over his ears to muffle the screeching, banging and roaring.

It’s over far too quickly.

“Cliffghasts. I hate cliffghasts.” Lee decides as he and Kit take the chance to reload, crouching next to the box that holds most of their bullets.

“Not the best first impression.” Kit agrees, her injured hand reaching out to pat Lyra’s head a little clumsily, “How’re you holding up, kiddo?” Lyra only nods in response.

“Hold tight. A little turbulence.” Lee tells them before calling out, “Iorek! Any more out there!”

“No, it’s clear.” Iorek replies, “Your shooting must have improved, Lee. Or perhaps Kit has always been better.”

“Never.” Lee answers, but as he forces a laugh with the reply, a cliffghast bursts out of the hatch at his feet. Lee fires three, four times as Lyra cowers again, holding Roger tighter than ever.

“I think it’s dead, Lee.” Kit says, grabbing hold of his arm to pull herself to her feet as he stands. “But I don’t think they’re done with us.” Lightning flashes as she speaks, and again thunder accompanies the clicking and growling of the cliffghasts. Lee aims, fires too quickly and hits a tether instead of a ghast. The balloon pitches, sending everyone flying. Lyra lands on the door. Her weight flings it open. She slides as every other being on board screams her name, as she shrieks something unintelligible, but somehow she finds a grip and clings to it.

Lee manages to move first, making his way around the central column and leaning out as far as he can. A box knocks into Kit, tipping her over. She slides too, but her foot catches on the basket before she can fall. This put her in a position of danger, but it also puts her closer to Lyra than Lee. She can feel Eli’s teeth in her trousers, doing his best to pull her back.

“Lyra! Lyra, come on, kiddo. Take my hand!” Lee’s gun falls through the air before he lands on the floor next to Kit. His fingers brush Lyra’s. And then she falls.

_ “Lyra!” _

***

Lee is humming. Kit is yelling into the air while Eli yowls in unison.

“I’m not sure I like that song anymore.” Hester tells her human.

“I have to sing when I’m nervous, you know that.” Lee replies. Kit roars and kick at the basket of the balloon. “Yeah, yeah, leave a dent in it, why don’t you? Let it out, Kit, she’s bust anyway.” Kit does, kicking the basket again.

“Of course she’s not, we just need to get her out of here so someone can take a look at her.” Hester reasons.

“And how do you suppose we do that? She’s our only means of travel!” The last part is shouted out into the snow, accompanied by a step ladder flung out onto the ice. Both he and Kit roar something in Spanish at the same time and their daemon’s ears go flat.

“I’m goin’ for a walk.” Kit snaps as she stalks away.

“Kit-”

_ “What?” _

“Look, I’m angry too, but-”

“Oh, don’t give me one of your speeches, Scoresby.”

“What d’you mean,  _ one of my speeches _ ?” The momentary softness is gone.

“We  _ failed _ , Scoresby. We lost the kids. Lost Lyra. Lost Roger. Lost Iorek. And now we’ve  _ crashed  _ on fucking  _ Svalbard _ . With  _ no hope of fucking rescue. _ ” Kit’s words are sharp, each sentence punctuated by another step.

“And is that all my fault, Sanchez, huh?” Ah, now he’s shouting.

“Well it isn’t all mine!” Kit shouts back. Eli hisses, but it’s more as a warning to his own human than anything. Kit and Lee rarely argue, but it’s always explosive when it happens. “We’re in over our heads, Scoresby, and the first thing that came into your head when you realised that was our bloody costs.”

“And here I was thinking this was about the kids, but all  _ you  _ did when you heard that was guilt trip the goddamn witch!”

“You have  _ no  _ idea what we were talkin’ about.”

“But you listened to everything  _ I  _ said to ‘er! Like a goddamn spy.”

“You’re being unfair!”

“So are you!”

“Oh, fuck off, Scoresby.”

“No, you fuck off, Sanchez!”

“That is  _ exactly  _ what I’m doing!” Kit yells, marching out onto the ice. She mutters darkly to her daemon, cursing Lee Scoresby with old Texan curses she’s known since she could talk. Back with the balloon, he’s doing much the same. Kit shoves her hands in her pockets, ignoring the pain that shoots through her arm.

Some time later, as the sun reaches its peak, Serafina Pekkela lands behind Lee.

“Uh, how...how much of that did you hear?” He asks nervously, shifting from foot to foot.

“One of my sisters has been tracking your movements. She heard more than I. You’re important to us, Mr Scoresby. You and Miss Sanchez both.”

“But why? We failed. Failed you, the kid. Each other.”

“Where is Kit, Lee?” Serafina asks gently. Lee points out to the ice at a dark humanoid shape walking with a little blob just as the humanoid yells something, pulls out her gun and fires several shots into the ice around her before throwing the gun to the ground. If she had been shouting words, they’d have been able to hear her clearly.

“You didn’t fail. Not in the slightest. Or Lyra. You fought for her. And now her fate is in another’s hands.” Serafina tells him.

“She’s alive? And Roger, and Iorek?”

“Kaisa brings word that they all live and all thrive. Iorek, with Lyra’s help, has reclaimed his throne.”

“Yes!” A laugh bubbles out of Lee, and his head turns, “I gotta tell Kit!  _ Wow!” _

Lee’s exhilarated yell echoes with the ringing of Kit’s furious shots, and she turns.

“Serafina.” Eli says when he sees her, his eyes keener than his human’s.

“She must bring good news…” Kit’s voice tails away. The only news that would make Lee so excited would be news of Lyra, Roger and Iorek. News that they were all alive. She feels Eli’s eyes on her and turns. “Okay, so I was childish. So was he!” Eli simply stares harder, “I know. I know it was stupid. I shouldn’t have shouted.”

“So now we go.”

“Now we go. And tell him that.” Kit bends to rub at Eli’s ear and to retrieve her pistol. They walk maybe five yards before Eli hears the first crack. “Ah, shit.” Kit moves faster, letting her feet slip a little to gain more speed, Eli loping ahead of her. Kit isn’t used to ice. She slips once, and it’s not just her elbow that cracks. A high, surprised sound comes from Eli as he finds his paw to be suddenly wet. 

“Up, Kit, get up!” He squeaks, and she does manage to get up. Kit runs now. Her stamping across and shooting at the already-thin ice has made it dangerous. “Run!”

“I’m trying, Eli, I’m trying!” And she is. It’s just unfortunate that she steps on a hole she herself had blown through the ice with her gun. The ice under her feet collapses, shatters, and she plunges into the water below. Her screams are swallowed by the water, Eli wailing on the ice. Kit bobs to the surface once, twice. The first time, she manages to take a breath. The second time, she and her daemon howl in one voice,  _ “Lee!” _

Any happiness or excitement that had been building by the balloon vanishes as the terrified scream echoes across the valley . It’s replaced by pure panic and fear, as if Lee’s just run into a brick wall made of the stuff. A dark, jagged circle has broken in the ice. Kit’s lynx daemon writhes on the ice next to the hole his human has fallen through, his yowls carrying clearly through the frozen air. Lee moves before he thinks, before Hester speaks, 

“Kit can’t swim.” She remembers. Lee is sliding down the snow to the ice. He takes a single step before either his brain or Hester’s common sense kicks in and he stops.

“No, she can’t. We gotta get to ‘er, Hester.”

“It took her the best part of an hour to git down there.” Hester points out.

“So we can’t get there in time. And even if we do, ice is too thin.” Lee realises aloud.

“You would fall too.” Serafina says, still incredibly calm. Hester’s feet thump into the snow, a small sign of panic. Lee whips around, hands balled into fists.

“But you wouldn’t.  _ You  _ can get her.”

“I’m afraid I alone could not take you both-”

“Then leave me. I’ll be fine. Take her. Save her.”

“I admire your selflessness, Mr Scoresby. If you had let me finish my sentence, I would have told you that it is fortunate I am not alone.” Serafina looks towards the hole in the ice, where Eli is now lying motionless.

“What d’you mean?” Lee asks even as a dark shape streaks down from the sky and into the water with barely a splash. Another witch, diving down into the hole and pulling Kit out of it and into the air. She, like her daemon being picked up by the witch’s, is limp and motionless. 

“She cain’t be dead, Lee. It would take more than cold water to kill our Kit.” Hester tries to be reassuring, but her own ears are shaking.

“She can’t swim. She don’t like the water.” His voice is much quieter than Hester’s. They’d been arguing. He’d yelled. Only to find out they’d argued for nothing. That everything would be alright. But now Kit Sanchez, the only stable thing Lee had ever had, dangles limply in a witch’s arms. Probably dead. He hadn’t been able to save her.

“She’s still alive. Very cold and in shock, but alive.” Serafina whispers.

“Can you keep her that way?”

“My sister can try.” Serafina says with a small shrug, and for a split second Lee understands the rage Kit feels every time she encounters a witch.

“I thought you gave a shit about her.  _ She  _ thought you gave a shit about her.” Serafina’s face begins to crumple at that.

“I do care, Mr Scoresby-”

“If she dies, any deal we had with you is off. We’re a package deal, Miss Pekkela. Sanchez and Scoresby ain’t a thing if there’s no Sanchez. So if we’re so important to you, you’re gonna save her. Because I can’t.” His voice fails him then. The other witch, the one holding Kit, is rising slowly into the air. Witches aren’t accustomed to carrying passengers. “Can I go with her?”

“I’m afraid not. I will send help for you and your balloon.” It’s all Serafina says before she takes off. She goes to her sister, helps lift Kit into the air.

“Wait!” Lee calls to the witches. They don’t. In an instant, they fade into the clouds. Kit is gone. The kids are gone. Iorek is gone. Lee Scoresby and his daemon stand alone in the snow, with no means of getting to anyone he cares about and no way of knowing if or when help will come.


	5. Kindling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ahaa, I've been ill since Christmas and idk if that'll come through in my writing. I'm a little on edge about some bits? And, uh, heads up, this is the longest chapter so far but hardly any of it is canon, only like 400 out of the 6.6k is canon stuff, so, uh, enjoy?

Upon very few occasions has Kit Sanchez slept in a bed, and never has she slept in a bed alone. Waking up on her back, lying on something soft, is disconcerting. Even more so when she tries to sit up and finds that she can’t. She can lift her head, but nothing else. Too-tight leather straps cross over every place where her body can bend: her ankles, knees, wrists, elbows, neck.

“Eli?” Her voice comes out slow and croaky and her daemons’ name is difficult to form. The sunlight is too bright and her head feels too heavy for her neck despite the fact that it’s resting on a pillow. “Lee?”

“‘M here.” Not Lee. Eli, his voice as strained as his human’s. “I think they drugged us, Kit. ‘M in a cage.”

“Where’s Lee?”

“I dunno. I can’t a-member what happened.” Eli answers.

“We fell.” Kit mumbles, “Into the ice.”

“Is that what happened?” A new voice asks. It takes Kit a moment to find the source of the voice and for their face to come into focus.

“Mr Syssleman? The fuck are you doin’ on Svalbard?” She croaks.

“I’m not on Svalbard, Miss Sanchez. You’re in Trollesund. I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon after you destroyed the town.”

“Why am I here?”

“You were left on the doorstep. Half-drowned with frostbite and hypothermia, leading onto pneumonia. We brought you back from the edge of death.”

“You don’t sound too happy about it.”

“Well, Miss Sanchez, on your last visit, you neglected to mention this.” Mr Sysselman reaches for a small metal table on wheels, picking up a pair of tweezers and plucking something else from a metal tray. Something that looks rather like the roots of a flower. Kit registers pinching pain on the inside of her elbow, just where her cloudpine ends. Whatever drugs they had given her must be wearing off if she can feel pain. She wonders if Sysselman knows that. “You’re a witch.” He spits.

“No, I am not. Where’s Lee? Mr Scoresby?”

“It seems your companion didn’t feel the need to stay with you.”

“He wouldn’t leave me.”

“He has.” Mr Sysselman assures Kit as his little gecko-like daemon crawls up onto the metal table.

“Why did you take my cloudpine?”

“Doctor Lanselius has asked for a sample.”

“Doctor Lanselius has no right to my cloudpine. I ain’t a witch. I can’t fly and I can’t do magic, or I wouldn’t be in a goddamn hospital.” Kit forces the words out more quickly than she’s comfortable with in an effort to seem more alert. She’s more aware of her surroundings, at least, of the tall white walls and tiled white floor and high white ceiling. 

“And that is precisely what a witch would say.” Another voice, one that Kit has never heard before. A long white coat that almost blends into the rest of the room, but a coat that signifies a doctor, with the symbol of the Magesterium embroidered onto the lapel.

“Then do a test. Take my daemon to the other side of the hospital.” Kit dares him, “A witch’s daemon can go miles away from its witch, mine cannot. He’ll pull, and it’ll be damn painful, but then you’ll know and you can unbind me.” The doctor stares for a moment, considering the offer. Then he picks up the cage that holds Eli. The daemon looks to his human. They need no words. Eli nods before the doctor turns and marches away without another word. 

Kit makes a point of staring at Sysselman when it happens, when the pain kicks in. Pulling is a difficult sensation to describe, but a universal one. The best words Kit has ever been able to think of for it is that it feels like some...mass behind her ribs, wrapped around her organs is being slowly dragged out of her body. At one end of the building, Eli is hurling himself against the door of the cage. At the other, Kit is straining against the straps that keep her tied to the hospital bed. She doesn’t make a sound, but as her face contorts she holds Sysselman’s gaze.

The doctor does come back. He doesn’t let Eli out of the cage, but he begrudgingly undoes the straps under the condition that Kit answers his questions.

“See? I ain’t runnin’.” Kit points out, sitting up and tucking a foot under herself. Her feet are bare, her hair is untied and the hospital gown she’s wearing is thin and has no sleeves, but at least it covers her back. Her hand drifts down to the cage, Eli’s nose pressed against her fingers for a brief moment before the doctor’s fox daemon pushes him out of reach. Kit recalls that one of the Bolvangar doctors had a fox daemon too.

“Why did you and Mr Scoresby land in Trollesund, Miss Sanchez?” The doctor starts calmly, as if he hadn’t just been tearing Kit’s soul in two.

“We heard Iorek was here. Iorek Byrnison has always been a good ally and we owed him a debt. We came to reclaim our property and set him free. He didn’t belong here.”

“And what property was that?”

“The bear’s armour.” Mr Sysselman answers for Kit, “Mr Scoresby won it from him in a game of cards, he has official documents that override the Magesterium’s papers.”

“And after you let the bear rampage through the town, the three of you took off with a tribe of Gyptians, did you not?”

“We did.” Kit nods, holding onto her ankle.

“Why were the Gyptians going north?”

“I dunno. Didn’ ask. We did a couple jobs for ‘em, got paid and split.”

“Miss Sanchez, do you know of a place called Bolvangar?” The Doctor asks lightly. Sysselman looks to him, confused. For a moment, Kit wonders if he’d really known what the Magesterium had been doing to those kids. He’d been letting them traffick the children through the town, turned a blind eye to all criminal activity, but had he been fully aware of what the consequences of his actions had been? Kit uses that moment, lets it seems like she’s thinking of an answer,

“No. Should I know it?” She asks innocently.

“No, you shouldn’t. Don’t worry about it, it’s not important.”

“If it isn’t important, why did you ask?”

“It isn’t. Important. You said something to Mr Sysselman about Svalbard. Why were you in ice-bear territory?”

“Lee and I were a-headin’ back to India, but we’d run out of water, so we landed to fill our canteens with snow. I...I wandered out too far. The ice was too thin. I fell through.” Kit registers that some small, brown blob has flown through one of the windows in the ceiling. Eli recognises the blob as a robin.

“How did you get back to Trollesund from Svalbard?”

“I don’t know.”

“How did you get here, Miss Sanchez.”

“I said I dunno! I was unconscious, ya know. Half-dead. I don’t remember what happened after I fell.”

“Do you know that you are wanted in over ten countries?”

“Last I checked, it was at least seventeen. Though I expect it’s more’n that now, your lot seem to have it out for me an’ Lee.”

“My lot?”

“The Magesterium. And if you ask me, we’re worth a lot more than you’re askin’ for.”

“Well, we’re not asking you, Miss Sanchez.”

“You should be, I’m workin’  _ with  _ you here. But why are you asking me those questions, Doctor? What’s Bolvangar?”

“I might remind you that you are wanted in  _ this  _ town, too. For stealing, shoplifting, destruction of property,  _ treason _ -”

“And might I remind you that I don’t  _ have  _ to help you with your investigation. I am willingly contributin’ under the impression that I get some kinda reward out of it.” Kit shifts, one leg dangling off the bed and her foot skimming the floor.

“So you do know something.”

“I dunno, Doctor, do I?” There’s a silent battle for a moment. Eli circles in his cage, a line of fur standing up along his back as he glares at the doctor’s fox-daemon. Kit and Eli win.

“I will see to it that you are cleared of all charges.” The Doctor nods. Kit continues to stare until he adds, “You  _ and  _ Mr Scoresby.” At this, Kit smiles and nods in return, 

“Thank you, Doctor. Now, I regret to inform you,” In a blink, Kit has launched herself out of the bed and knocked the doctor out cold, “I’ll be dischargin’ myself.” She turns to Sysselman, whose mouth is hanging open, “You start yellin’ and you’re dead. Sit, Mr Sysselman.” Kit takes a moment to open Eli’s cage before she sets to work making sure Sysselman can’t run or shout for help before striding out of the room with her daemon. The robin flits out after them.

Four more people fall unconscious before Kit finds the exit and steps through the door out into Trollesund. The hospital gown sticks out stark white against the grimy town, and Kit ducks into the second alley she finds, sinking to the ground. Her head aches and spins and her limbs feel tingly and her chest feels heavy as she breathes. 

“Where’s Lee?” Kit’s voice wobbles, “He wouldn’t leave us, Eli, not unless-”

“Don’t say it.”

“-he’s dead. He would never leave us unless he died, Eli.” Kit’s eyes burn, and she rubs at them angrily. “Lee’s dead. Lyra’s dead. Roger-”

“How did we get here if it weren’t Lee?” Eli asks. There’s a beat of silence. “We gotta get outta here.”

“Reckon the good doctor’s gonna break his promises.” Kit mumbles as she creeps towards the other end of the alley.

“Ya think?” Eli’s steps aren’t the steadiest, and neither are Kit’s, but they can’t afford to stay still and take time to recover. Five unconscious healthcare professionals and the town’s authority strapped to a hospital bed won’t go unnoticed for long. The Magesterium will see her as a weak link to break the chain of the witches. They  _ know.  _ They know everything. They know she was at Bolvangar, that she was part of its destruction. They know who she is. 

Kit pushes herself off the wall and out into the street. There’s a house directly across from her, the door open. A cat wanders out, mangy and matted. A mouser, clearly, but the door is left open for him to come and go as he pleases. Luckily for Kit.

“ _ Find the witch!” _

Ah. Kit had rather hoped she’d have a few more minutes before the hunt started. She ducks through the doorway and behind the door itself, finding herself pressed against a soft wall of coats. Almost...too many coats, Kit tells herself. Most of them old, brown or black, but a few of them small, blue and purple and red. They must have kids, whoever lives in this house. There’s a black coat, long and unwrinkled hanging next to one identical in style and colour but clearly well worn. Kit lifts the patchy, older jacket delicately off its hook and slides it around her shoulders, searching the pockets as it settles over her. 

“Shoes?” Eli asks, nosing at a pair of boots, but all the shoes available are far too big or toddler sized. Kit is going through all the hats on the wall rack, but she wrinkles her nose at all of them.

“Shoeless an’ hatless we go.”

“We gonna raid the kitchen?”

“They’ve left the door open, probably means they’re at home.” Kit reasons, even as Eli pads slowly towards the closest door, through which Kit can see a hob. “Well, Elina did always tell us-”

“If you don’t know when your next meal is coming, take two now.” Kit finishes the sentence as she decides to step into the kitchen. Many carrots, apples and plums can fit in all the pockets of the jacket...as well as two bars of chocolatl and a bag of lebkuchen. Kit swipes a punnet of raspberries without a second thought. Lee likes them. She freezes for a moment, halfway through tipping raspberries into her pocket. Lee isn’t here. She’d forgotten for a moment that he isn’t standing lookout at the door. She’d been stealing for two automatically.

“Piotr? Are you sneaking fudge again?” A man’s voice calls from somewhere upstairs. Whoever he is, he’s coming down the stairs. Kit turns, but she doesn’t get out of the door before Piotr’s husband catches sight of her. He runs after her, hears the Magesterial soldiers yelling and shouts in reply, “The witch! The witch, she’s here!”

“Shit!” Human and daemon swear in unison before taking off down the street. A bullet flies past Kit, about three feet from her right, and she and Eli curse again. Kit’s first instinct is to reach for her own gun, which, of course, isn’t there. This time the curse words come out in Spanish. Two more Magesterial soldiers have joined the first, and Kit’s only saving grace is that they can’t run and shoot at the same time. That, and the fact that they’re crap shots. 

“Magesterium trainin’ ain’t shit, huh? Y’all atoned for muderin’ a witch already? Feel free to stop shootin’ and do that now, okay?” Kit turns as she shouts, running backwards. “Or, y’know, you could just slide your guns over, no sins commit-” She’s cut off by three bullets. Two of them whizz past her, but the third clips her leg and Eli yowls. “Alright, sons a’ bitches, new plan: I run, you keep missin’.” Kit takes a sharp left down yet another alley, calling to the soldiers, “You were probably aimin’ for my head anyway!” There are steps behind this building, and Kit takes them. When they end, she leaps up and starts climbing.

***

Kit and Eli stay on the roof for the rest of the day, Kit occasionally chucking small stones at Magesterial soldiers as they jog past the building while Eli paces around her and they discuss...everything they can remember since landing on Svalbard.

“Induced coma, huh. Wonder how they did that?” Kit asks, snapping off the end of a carrot.

“Wonder if Piotr did eat the rest of that fudge.”

“ _ Eli. _ ”

“Must be on a diet or something.” Eli remarks, and Kit reaches out to poke his stomach softly. “Alright, alright. Do you...d’you think Lee…”

“I dunno, Eli.” It takes a single second for the realisation to hit Kit. The realisation that she might be the only one left. Lyra and Roger fallen out of the balloon, Lee...not here.

“The real question here is how we came to be in Trollesund in the first place.” Eli points out, holding Kit’s gaze. A distraction. She stares into her daemon’s eyes, watch as they dart away from hers to follow something else. Something that may be the answer to all of those questions.

“I think we already know that, don’t we?” She says innocently, a second before Eli pounces on a bird. A robin. The same robin that’s been flitting around them all day. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” The words come out somewhere between sing-song and icy.

“Please! Please, let us go!” A choked voice blurts from somewhere to Kit’s left.

“Show yourself. Answer some of our questions. Cause you took us here, didn’t you?” Kit asks. There isn’t an answer. Eli puts more weight on the little bird.

“No! Please!” A witch stumbles into visibility on the roof, “Yes! I took you here!”

“And you’ve been watching me, haven’t you? Since you took me here? How long ago was that, witch, what’s the date?” The witch only answers the last question. The year has turned since Kit had fallen through the ice on Svalbard.

“You let them...you watched…” Kit explodes, slamming what had been her bad hand into the concrete of the roof with a yell. She hasn’t really looked at her hand yet, and she doesn’t intend to now. Eli hisses at the witch’s robin daemon.

“Release my daemon!” The witch demands. Eli lifts his paws, but follows the robin around the roof.

“Tell me. Where is Lee Scoresby?” Kit makes her own demands.

“I don’t know-” The witch starts, and Eli swipes a paw at the robin-daemon.

“Liar. Witches keep tabs on men they’re interested in and, believe me, they are very interested in him. Is Lee Scoresby alive, and whether he is or not, where is he?” Kit demands. The witch tries to muffle a whimper, but otherwise stays silent. Eli captures the robin again. “Don’t think I won’t kill you. I don’t like to be kept in the dark or kept away from those I love, and you have done both of those things. Is. He. Alive.”

“He...he...He’s alive.” 

“Thank you.” Kit nods, and Eli stops batting at the bird, “Now where is he?”

“He’s on his way to the council of Serafina Pekkela.”

“Right. You’re gonna take me there.”

“I can’t-”

“I have as much right as you do to be at that meetin’. You’re gonna take me there. And on the way, you’re gonna tell me everything that has happened since you dropped me off here and let them put me to sleep. You’re gonna tell me everything that has happened to Lee, and to Lyra, Roger, Iorek and the Gyptians. You will spare no detail, or your little robin red breast will be nothin’ but red dust.”

***

It doesn’t feel right, Lee decides. It hadn’t felt right taking off in the newly-repaired balloon, it hadn’t felt right lazily floating towards Lake Enara, not least because he’s about to be the first non-witch, the first  _ man _ in history to witness the witches’ council. That, he could have gotten over, albeit with just a little bragging. But it didn’t sit right with him doing it on his own. Kit had been whisked away almost three months ago. It’s the longest the two Texans have ever been apart. Lee’s still not sure that she isn’t dead. Serafina wouldn’t tell him. He’d wanted to go get Kit, but the wind had been against him, controlled by the witches. 

It doesn’t feel right not to have Sanchez by his side as he makes his way up the mountain to where the council meeting would be. It’s too quiet, too peaceful. She’d be blowing a gasket by now, being micromanaged by the witches like this. It’s wrong, not knowing if she’s dead or alive, if she’s still...wherever she is or six feet under. It feels odd to only have half a plan, half of ‘What comes next.’ His half.

Soft footfalls behind him are the only indication that Serafina Pekkela has landed. She’d had no intention of announcing her arrival, instead waiting for him to notice. He always does. Kit does that. Not fly, or land, but she can sneak up on someone as quietly as the night, pin them against a wall before they even know she’s there. Must be a witch thing.

It feels even less right once he’s in the clearing where the meeting will take place. Witches surround him, all in flowing dresses that don’t cover enough considering they’re in Lapland. Lee supposes they must not feel the cold. They stand in a wide circle around a tree where Serafina stands, their bird-daemons perched in the woods behind them. They stand there for some time, long enough for Hester to start shifting about nervously, before Serafina opens the meeting.

“Sisters,” she starts, “the child we expected has vanished. I have invited Mr Scoresby here to share his thoughts.” Ah. Lee hadn’t been expecting to speak so soon. He’d rather been hoping he’d be asked to add his opinions at the end. The witch queen looks to him, “Speak, Lee.”

“Uh...since,” Lee swallows hard and Heser shuffles closer to his foot, “losin’ Lyra, I have concerned myself with a man named Stanislaus Grumman.” The last few words come out more strongly than the rest, “Has anyone heard of ‘im? No? Well, various rumours, but people say he knows the whereabouts of some kinda object that gives magical protection. Knowin’ Lyra and the trouble she’s in, thought I might find this item and take it to ‘er. Get her that protection.”

“Thank you, Lee.” Serafina seems to be about to say more, but,

“I’m not done.” Lee tells her, and Serafina almost looks as if she had been expecting this. With raised eyebrows, she asks,

“You have more to add?”

“Yes, Miss Pekkela, I do. I regret to inform you that I’m not gonna go looking for this weapon without my business partner. Kit Sanchez. Now, I know that you know where she is, and I’m not going anywhere until I know where I can find her.”

“Your loyalty is admirable, Mr Scoresby.” Serafina nods, “I will see to it that our sister brings her back to you as soon as she can.” So they had known. They’d known all along and not told him. Why?

“She’s already here, no thanks to you!” A voice hollers from the treeline. Hester hears Eli hissing before Lee sees Kit. A very bedraggled Kit. She has no shoes, and there’s bloodmoss wrapped around one of her knees. A rather distressed-looking black greatcoat is only as long as the thin dress that must once have been white but is now mottled brown and green. There are sticks in her hair and barely contained rage in her eyes. She looks like she’s been through hell. Trekking across the tundra of the North in her condition for the best part of a month was closer to hell that she would ever have liked to be.

Her eyes fall from Serafina Pekkela to Lee, and her mouth falls open a little. Her face crumples. Eli leaps forward before she moves, barreling into Hester and knocking her over, but the humans do move, Kit stumbling rather than walking. They’re not sure who reaches who first, it’s just a collision. It’s a moment before either of them speak, and the witches simply watch as the Texans wrap their arms around each other probably a little tighter than they should, the force of the collision making them rock from side to side a little, Kit’s head buried in Lee’s shoulder to block out her surroundings. When they do speak, the witches can’t hear them.

“I thought you were dead.” Lee mumbles.

“I thought  _ you  _ were dead!” Kit says into his shoulder. At that, they break apart and Lee’s hands go to either side of her face.

“Where the  _ fuck  _ have you been?”

“Trussed up like a star-forsaken turkey in fuckin’ Trollesund. Mr Sysselman sends his enraged regards.” Kit tells him before hugging him again. This time she looks over Lee’s shoulder and glares at Serafina. “How long were you plannin’ on leaving me there?”

“As long as was necessary.” Serafina answers, as calm and collected as ever. Kit spits something and has half a mind to launch herself at the witch, but Lee had expected this and tightens his hold on her.

“Don’t do it, Kit.”

“Fine.” Kit spits, and uncomfortably frosty silence falls between the witch queen and the witch’s daughter. What breaks the silence is what makes it infinitely more uncomfortable. A dark shape arcing through the sky to land next to Serafina. A witch. Kit stiffens, suddenly made of ice. “Hey, Ma.” The words are as stiff as her body. The witch holds Serafina’s gaze without showing any indication that she’s heard her daughter’s voice. “My name’s Kit, in case you’ve forgotten, Kit Sanchez.”

“I had not forgotten. I am merely surprised that you are here.”

“Surprised I-” Kit cuts herself off, holds up a hand and pulls away from Lee, “You know what, I’m just gonna listen to whatever the fuck you have to say and then immediatley forget it.” Lee catches hold of her elbow,

“Kit, you alright?”

“Yeah, I just...think I’m gonna pass out if I don’t sit down.” Kit lowers herself slowly, unsteadily, to the ground while Eli paces. “Heya, Hester, what’ve you been doin’ without me?” Kit asks quietly, the tips of her fingers just barely brushing the tops of the hare’s ears.

“Missin’ you. We gotta plan, Kit, but I think you should listen to her first.” Hester says, indicating Ruta Skadi by a nod of the head, “She really your ma?”

“That’s my ma. Queen Ruta Bloody Skadi of Lake Bloody Lubana.”

“-that man should not be here.” Kit catches the end of Ruta’s sentence.

“You gotta problem with him, you take it up with me,  _ Ma _ .” She calls out. Hester turns her head to give Kit a hard look, “Alright, I’m shuttin’ up, I’m shuttin’ up.”

“Sisters,” Ruta announces after a moment, “Katja Sirkka has been taken prisoner by the Magesterium. I have word they are rounding up anyone who questions their authority. The way those animals of the Magesterium have cracked down upon the world since the opening. Towns tightly controlled by armies.”

“We’re out of our depth here.” Hester whispers, her ears back as she presses herself into Lee’s leg.

“Shut up, Hester.”

“So the time has come to act,” Ruta continues, moving through the witches, “to show the Magesterium that their actions have consequences. And I am here to beg you, Serafina Pekkela, and all the sisters here. Join me in rescuing Katja. I believe we have no choice…” She goes on for another minute or more before flying away without hesitation. As her mother turns into nothing but a black dot against the navy sky, Kit deflates, letting her head knock against Lee’s knee.

“Miss Pekkela-”

“You are no longer required, Mr Scoresby, you may retire if you so wish.”

“‘S that the politest way to say ‘fuck off’ or-”

“Miss Sanchez, I will speak to you in the morning.”

“Now  _ that’s  _ a ‘fuck off.’”

***

It takes the entirety of the trek from the top of the mountain to the balloon on the shore for Lee and Kit to share all of their news, to detail the horrors of what has happened. Lee balks as Kit describes what the witch had observed without intervening. Kit, on the other hand, has already been told everything Lee has to tell. Some of it had to be forced out of the witch Juta Kamainen, true, but every word of it was the truth. Any secret tears of joy over Lyra’s survival or sorrow over Roger’s death have already been shed.

Lee hands Kit her old charcoal-cloured jumper and a bottle of vodka, and she mumbles thanks before half-falling onto the bench. Kit allows herself one big sigh before she leans forward and peels the bloodmoss from her leg.

“You got shot?” Lee asks.

“Just a nick. Antagonise the bastards and their aim gets sloppy, I learned from the best.”

“That is  _ exactly  _ what you tell me  _ not _ to do.”

“Their aim was crap anyway, Magesterium trainin’ ain’t what it used to be. Think they were new.” Kit explains as Lee shifts to pick up her heel. 

“Your feet are a mess.” He tells her as Hester uses her pushes the healing supplies towards them.

“Would you believe, there weren’t any shoes in my size in  _ any  _ of the houses I raided on the way here? No good hats either, damnit.” Kit complains, lifting the bottle of vodka to her lips, “Jeez, Scoresby, that stings!”

“Don’t want an infection.” Lee says simply, calmly, as if explaining it to a five year old.

“Like the one in your leg?” Kit asks pointedly, breaking Lee’s concentration, “Serafina told me about it. Is it any better?”

“She healed it for me. She’d probably do the same for you, but-”

“I won’t let her.”

“Exactly.” Kit says, even as her voice fades. She stares at Lee as he frowns at her knee. There’s silence for a soft moment before Kit launches herself at her friend. There’s an  _ oof  _ and a quiet crack when Lee’s back hits the bench.

“Leg-” he splutters.

“Shut up, Lee, I missed you.” Kit tells him, “I missed you.” She deflates again, relief washing over her. Kit isn’t someone that gets held or hugged, and she rarely initiates the event, but this is the second time she’s hurled herself at her old friend today. She’s knocked Lee over like an excited toddler, practically lying on top of him, arms wound tight around him. Her voice wobbles dangerously as she repeats herself, “I missed you.”

“I missed you too.” Lee mumbles, not used to this kind of reaction from Kit, struggling to free his arm so he can hug her back. “It’s alright, Kit. It’s alright.” There’s a moment there, where Kit just lets go. A moment where they are toddlers again, where every happiness in the world comes from simply being together. A moment, but then she sits up sharply. They aren’t toddlers anymore.

“Alright, that’s enough.” Kit sniffs as she sits back and pulls her sweater over her head even though she has half a mind to grab Lee again, “So we, so we’re gonna go lookin’ for this, uh, mystical weapon for this kid that the Magesterium wants dead...while the Magesterium also wants us dead and are actively hunting us.”

“That’s about the shape of it.”

“You know I’m worth seven thousand more pieces of gold that you are now?”

“And Grumman-” Lee stops short. “Wait.  _ Seven thousand? _ That ain’t right, surely.”

“Nah, seven thousand, at least. If not ten.” Kit assures him, leaning back against the bench of the balloon basket. Being back in the balloon is the greatest comfort of all, second only to the aeronaut who flies it.

“Since when did the Magesterium find more worth in a woman than they did a man?”

“Since they believed that woman to be more than a woman.”

“Fair point. You’re a witch after all, ‘n that’s far more valuable than any old Texan.”

“Not a witch.” Kit reminds him.

“But you are.” Lee counters.

“A-but I’m not.” Kit says, mocking him.

“Kit.”

“Lee.”

“No, I’m serious, Kit-”

“Oh, shit.”

“-That cloudpine stickin’ outta your spine that I haven’t mentioned, haven’t looked at, haven’t thought about since we were two? It’s there, Kit-”

“Fuck, Lee, I really don’t need this right now-”

“No, you do. Because you’re here, now.” Lee points up to where the council meeting had been, “These are your people-”

“No, they’re not-”

“They should be. They want to be. Serafina wants you to be here. She loves you like a sister, K-”

“ _ Love _ ? Witches don’t know what love is! Witches have never done  _ anything  _ but abandon me-”

“She saved you.” Lee blurts.

“What? No, you-”

“No, Kit, I didn’t. Serafina had already sent another witch to pull you out before I even asked her to. The witches saved you. They always look out for you, Kit, you know that, Serafina always rescues you when I...when I can’t. I...I think you should stay here.” Kit stares at him in disbelief, more confused than angry. She can’t quite make out what he’s feeling, what... _ this  _ is, so she looks to the hare,

“Hester, what the fuck is goin’ on, this man’s talkin’ out his ass.”

“He thinks you should stay here, because the Magesterium wants you more’n they ever wanted us, and he can’t protect you from that. We knew goin’ into this that it was over our heads but it’s blown way outta proportion. It’s dangerous, and you’ll be safer here than with us.”

“No shit it’s gonna be dangerous, that’s why I’m going with you! I’ve gotta make sure you don’t die, Scoresby!” Kit bursts after a moment, hands flying into the air before realisation hits her and her hands find Lee’s own, her voice quieting, “I know what you’re tryna do. I know you don’t want me to get hurt, don’t want anyone to get hurt. I know that’s kinda your priority, always has been. But my priorities are slightly different.” Kit’s aware of how hot her face has become, though she isn’t sure if it’s out of anger or because of oncoming tears. She isn’t sure what emotion she’s feeling now. Regardless, she stands and turns to look out of the balloon.

“I promised your ma that I would never leave you. That no matter how hard things got, I’d always be there to get you to the other side. So you’re stuck with me, Scoresby, for better or for worse. Okay?” The wind is cold, but it isn’t strong, and Kit’s grateful for it. Silence hangs in the air until Hester whispers,

“Toldya it wouldn’t work.”

“Shut up, Hester.” Lee mumbles, hesitating before adding, “Okay.” His voice is much closer that time, a hand going to Kit’s arm, the only warning she gets before his head bumps into hers. Kit’s not entirely sure if it’s for comfort or an apology.

“Now, a little bunny told me that you ain’t been sleepin.’ Get some rest, Lee. I’ll be here.”

***

He does sleep, but not for long. The sun is just barely beginning its rise. Kit has fallen asleep, curled on the floor in a nest of clothes. Lee decides to take this as a tentative sign of trust in the witches rather than Kit simply passing out from sheer exhaustion. He believed that, if she wanted to, Kit could leave him and the balloon and become part of the clan. He really did. And he wasn’t sure whether to be happy about that or not. Lee stays where he is, lying on the bench, half hoping he can fall asleep again. 

Yes, Hester had told him that trying to convince Kit to stay with the witches wouldn’t work. Still he’d hoped. Lee was nothing if not hopeful. Keeping Kit safe was a priority, he’d made the same promise to his mother as Kit had. Keeping Lyra safe was a priority, which was why he would find Stanislaus Grumman. No, not he. They. He and Kit both.

This...prophecy stuff, none of it seemed set in stone, though Lee supposes that must be the nature of prophecies. Serafina hadn’t wanted to explain any more than the fact that he and Kit had a role to play, that they were responsible for Lyra...and yet. And yet Serafina had kept Kit away. Hidden her, spied on her. Lied to Lee in saying she didn’t know where his friend was. She hadn’t seemed to have any intentions of reuniting them until prompted to do so. Some part of Lee, that part called Hester, found it amusing that Lee was encouraging Kit to trust the witches even as he began to lose faith in them.

The silence of the dawn is broken by the witch’s daughter. She shoots upright as she wakes, choking on air. Lee lies still, hat tipped over his eyes so that he can see her but she, hopefully, cannot see him awake. He wouldn’t be doing Kit any favours by weighing in now. Her hands shoot out for ropes, for railings, anything. She finds the edge of the balloon basket, hauls herself over it and disappears, her feet crunching on the pebbles of the shore. Lee counts almost to three minutes before Kit’s breaths even out. Once that happens, she starts walking. Lee waits until the crunching of the pebbles fade to footfalls on grass before he gets up and makes his way towards Kit. He opts for taking the ramp down to the ground rather than jumping off the side of the balloon.

Kit sits on a log, her back to the lake. Eli’s tail catches the moonlight every so often as he wanders between the trees. Lee walks slowly, letting Hester go first.

“You alright?” she asks Kit gently, hopping up onto the log beside her, “Whatcha dreamin’ about?”

“Just a replay of what happened when my ma came to collect me with a side of drownin.’” Kit says it lightly, but she catches a tear on the back of her hand before it reaches her chin.

“And how are you doing with that? Seeing her?” Hester asks Kit just as gently as before, Lee settling onto the log on Kit’s other side.

“I dunno. I didn’t expect it. Some stupid part of me thought...you know, that I’d…” Kit’s breath catches, cutting off her sentence. She breathes in, out, and Eli’s voice calls from the tree line,

“Thought maybe she’d done enough.”

“But she couldn’t even look at me.” Kit forces out, driving her heel into the pebbles, muttering something in Spanish.

“Cursin’ a witch now, huh?” Lee asks, elbowing her, and Kit aims the same curse at him. “What’ve you got to impress her for, anyway?”

“It’s not that I gotta impress her. It’s...I...I want to prove her wrong.” Kit corrects him, rubbing at where her pinkie and ring fingers should be.

“Prove her wrong on what she said when she left you?” Lee hesitates. Certain things had always been off-limits. Certain questions he’d never asked her and she’d never asked him. One of which he’s going to ask now. “What did she say to you?”

“That I was weak and my weakness shamed her.” Kit answers tightly. There’s a line drawn here, a line between comforting Kit and sending her into a silent, sullen shell. She won’t take pity or justification of her mother’s actions. There is no justification, not for humans. Other witches could perhaps understand what Ruta had done to her daughter, consider it the natural thing to do. Witches rarely consider that humans can be as proud and fierce as them.

“Fuck her.” Lee says the words without thinking.

“Fuck her.” Kit agrees quietly after a moment. Silence wedges itself between them for a minute. Eli returns from the woods and Kit’s shoulders slump.

“Your ma.” Lee mumbles, shaking his head, “Ruta Skadi. I’d heard of her before, she’s got quite the reputation for being, uh…”

“Heartless?”

“I was gonna say ruthless, but if that’s how you wanna see it…The witches hold her in high respect, Kit, she’s got good intel on Asriel.”

“How’d she come about that?”

“She’s his lover.” Lee answers simply, and Kit splutters, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand.

“My ma. Is fuckin’ Asriel Belacqua? Lyra’s pa?” Kit looks at Lee then, both of them wearing the same grimace, “That don’t feel right. Suppose it hardly matters to her. Always had atrocious taste in men.” That makes Lee laugh, at least a little, and that prompts half of a smile from Kit. Silence falls again, but less like a wedge and more like a blanket. 

“You know...you pulled that speech about me stayin’ here outta your ass, but...for the record, I think Serafina would. Accept me. Teach me magic, let me be part of the clan. Maybe some of the other witches would too, but...they’d always be outnumbered.” Kit admits, “And I couldn’t do it, anyway. Couldn’t leave you, I mean.” Kit waits for Lee to crack a joke, but he just sits, somehow knowing that she has more to say. “They’re not my people, Lee. You are. You, and the bear, and the kids.  _ Kid. _ ” She corrects herself quickly. There’s only one kid now.

Roger Parslow is gone. Dead. The beginning of a chain reaction of changes. Lord into murderer, child into chosen, world into worlds. Lyra might be the fire of the prophecy, Lee and Kit the fireplace and Lyra’s own parents the pokers, but Roger had been the match. The sun breaks through the clouds, setting the world aflame with orange light.


	6. Hernandez

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ended up splitting 2x03 into two chapters because altogether it was almost 8000 words. However, once I split it this first part was a little short, so please don't mind that a certain amount of it could be seen as more filler than anything else, but it's all fun shenanigans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sanchez & Scoresby, Now With Fake Marriage Shenanigans [and fake pregnancy shenanigans]!! Also, Kit pretends to be sick at one point, don't worry, she isn't actually. I haven't read this over properly before posting because I finished it about three seconds ago so there are likely spelling mistakes and things [if you spot any Let me know]

Four dead-ends after leaving Lake Enara, Kit Sanchez and Lee Scoresby lie sprawled along the bench that lines the basket of their hot-air-balloon, both of them with their hats over their eyes to block out the high afternoon sun. They’ve been sleeping a lot, whenever they’re not looking for Grumman, an attempt to relieve themselves of the exhaustion that had been haunting them since Lyra Silvertongue had fallen out of their balloon. It was odd, that haunting, an odd sort of rift. To Lee, it had happened months ago, but it had only been a week for Kit.

Hester sits dutifully at Lee’s feet...well, foot, his other foot has landed on the floor, and Eli is curled under the shade of where the bench sticks out the most, Kit’s hand brushing his ear. The aeronaut's heads are only an inch or so apart. Normally, they would take it in shifts to sleep, but they’d passed out within minutes of each other, leaving their daemons to take watch...and they still aren’t awake.

The wind shifts. Quite a sudden shift at that, the balloon had barely made any progress in the night, but now it’s moving...almost with purpose.

“Lee, we’re moving.” The hare announces, hopping down from the bench to speak more directly into his ear, “The wind is a-whistling,” He’s starting to wriggle a little, the combination of Hester’s alertness and her voice waking him up. Not fast enough. “Wake up, Lee!” Hester barks, and Lee sits up, one hand rubbing at his eyes and the other pulling Kit’s hat off her face.

“Rude.” Kit mutters, keeping her eyes closed as she sits up and pulls her hair together, not ready for the brightness of the sun.

“Eh, you got enough sleep in your funky little Magesterium-induced-coma.”

“Also rude. Your mama taught you manners, Scoresby, what happened to ‘em?”

“See, I spent too much time with a little girl called Kit-”

“Hey! We weren’t headed to Yenisei before.” Eli calls, and heads turn, “This is weird.”

“Looks like the kind of place a famous explorer might wind up.” Lee decides, and his friend and his daemon give him the same look,

“You said that about the last three towns.” the hare points out.

“Eli’s right, it’s weird. The wind…” Kit starts.

“What about it?”

“Feels like...well, feels unnatural. Like magic.”

“Fate finds a way of takin’ us where we need to go, I guess.” Lee says, turning to the little control panel.

“ _ Now  _ who sounds like a witch?” Kit asks pointedly.

***

They land among the closest trees, but there was no way of landing unnoticed. Not enough trees for that. Only enough to hide humans, not balloons. Kit brushes the last little clump of dust from the skirt of her dress before perching on the edge of the balloon, her feet planted on the bench. The dress is muted green, inconspicuous.

“You still got the ring or…”

“Well, ya see, I got into a bit of an altercation with a Tartar a while back an’ I lost my ring finger and the weddin’ band with it.” Kit explains, “Didn’ have a chance to look for it, you understand.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lee mumbles, already digging in a little metal box, “You’re lucky I bought multiples.”

“Bought?” Hester repeats archly.

“You’re lucky I  _ procured extras _ .” Lee amends, and Kit laughs, catching the golden ring Lee tosses over his shoulder and sliding it onto the middle finger of her left hand before leaning forward to wrap a pale blue dress around a pistol and shove it into her rucksack.

“Pack the certificate, would you? Dunno how much hold the Magesterium has over Yenisei.” Kit says to Lee. Hester’s head turns,

“D’you think it’ll get past ‘em?”

“It’s a good fake, Hester, it’s worked every time so far.” Eli points out.

“My dear Elina Hernandez.” Lee gestures at Kit, “How many children do we have?”

This is a decades-old trick. The best fake wedding certificate money could buy from Atlas State and a pair of stolen wedding bands was the most watertight disguise Lee and Kit had ever come up with. The most popular surname in Texas and an ever-changing story simply made them disappear. The best disguises are the simplest.

“Three. Twins who have already settled and a six-year-old.” Kit decides.

“Lizzie, Ralph and…”

“Billy.” Kit says it quietly. It had been the first name to come to mind.

“Billy.” Lee nods.

“And I’m pregnant.”

“Smart, they won’t hit you if they think you’re...well, you know. Knocked up. Daemons?”

“A beagle for Ralph?” Kit suggests, and Lee nods again.

“Beagle for Ralph, Siamese cat for Lizzie.”

“Billy likes the idea of having a bunny.” Kit grins.

“Of course he does! Rabbits are the best.” Lee says, his hand going to Hester’s head as Kit laughs. The sound of it doesn’t travel far, staying in the little bubble of home that the balloon is. She shifts a little, turning to where Eli has carefully placed three knives. She picks the smallest of them, thinking it could pass for a letter opener, and slips it into a side pocket of the rucksack alongside a canteen of water before picking the bag up and swinging it over her shoulder. Eli reaches up with his paw and bats Kit’s hat off her head. Texan housewives who have never left the continent do not bear the hallmarks of a criminal. Not many people in Texas wear the old ‘cowboy’ hats anymore either, not as far as Kit knows.

Lee lifts his own pack, and he steps out of the balloon first, offering his arm to Kit. She takes it, letting her hand rest in the crook of his arm. Her other hand, however, goes to his hair.

“Why’s it gotta stick up so much?” she asks irritably, trying to flatten the funny little quiff.

“It’s just doin’ that!” Lee protests. Kit smacks his hand away when he tries to defend his head.

“Sure it is.” Kit mutters, reaching for her water canteen.

“Kit. Kit  _ no!” _

***

Yenisei is pretty standard, as far as run-down riverside factory towns go, though the river should really be frozen over. Unpaved ground either trodden hard or into mud, few buildings more than two stories, all the roofs corrugated iron, smoke belching from the chimneys of half a dozen factories. There’s smoke at ground-level too, emanating from various pipes and machines. Kit and Lee stroll arm-in-arm through the heart of the town, their daemons dutifully trotting side-by-side just ahead of them, Eli fighting the urge to split off and bound off to the side to inspect that bucket right there...The human’s eyes are constantly moving, looking for anything that could be of help, their investigation disguised by demure conversation and the occasional gesture at their surroundings.

They pause just after turning a corner, one of them pointing at the building ahead. It looks the grandest of all the buildings they’ve seen so far, somewhat out of place with its blue facade and elaborately carved pillars. It’s almost as if it’s impersonating a Grecian temple but, knowing the North, it’ll be a far from holy place. A huge sign stands on the roof, making the squat little building the tallest in the vicinity.  _ Samirsky Hotel.  _

“You know, I’ve got a good feeling about this one.” Lee decides.

“Reckon they’ve got bacon sandwiches?” Kit asks, only half-joking.

The interior of the hotel is grubbier than its exterior, though the grime better matches the rest of the town. Inside is decorated more in red than blue. There’s staff to match, a red-haired woman standing at the bar and a woman dressed in red balancing plates as she walks, her crow daemon swooping over her head. There are two old men playing instruments in the corner, though burbling chatter and laughter almost drown out the sound of the music. No one takes any notice of the Texans, which, so far, is a lot better than the last Northern inn they tried. Kit counts two, four, six Imperial Muscovy Guards spaced out in pairs. She lets her hair fall past her ear like a curtain to prevent the nearest pair from seeing her face. So far, no one has recognised them. So far.

“Divide and conquer?” Kit asks quietly. Lee nods before heading towards the bar and the red-haired woman,

“Got any free rooms? Any chance you could swing us one with a bathroom?”

***

Long after the sun has set, Kit winds her way through the crowded bar back to where Lee has been sitting for over an hour listening to some bedraggled old man ramble on and on. He looks like he’s about to drop off to sleep. Kit reaches out and pinches the back of his neck, quite effectively waking him up.

“I swear to the stars, if one more person touches my stomach I’m gonna start stranglin’ folks.” She mutters as she slides onto a stool, Eli leaping up onto the bar so that he can lie down but still have a good view of what’s going on. Kit waves a hand to the old man in way of greeting him, but he takes little notice of her and continues his rambling without a break. 

“-I was thinking about what he’d just said. And he said it again. To which, I said to him...you want to guess what I said?”

“I can’t imagine.” Lee asks as is expected of him.

“I said…No.”

“Is that it?” Lee asks, and the old man nods seemingly proudly, humming in response, “Well, that is some story you got there, ain’t it just, Elina?”

“Sure is. Wish I’d heard the rest of it.” Kit replies.

“No, you don’t.” Lee mumbles.

“What was that?” The old man asks.

“Nothing.” Lee assures him, “Oh, uh, Sergei. Sergei? Sergei. This is my wife, Elina.” His hand goes not to Kit but to her daemon, rubbing at a dark spot behind his ear. Kit flinches at the contact, but... _ It’s just Lee.  _ People only touch other daemons out of hatred or love. Lee, realising the move was a mistake, takes his hand away. Eli bumps his head back into Lee’s palm of his own accord. “Oh. Kay. Well, uh, Sergei, now you and I are friends, maybe you can help us with something. We’re lookin’ for someone. One Stanislaus Grumman?”

“Strange man,” the raggedy old storyteller hums, “Lean, tough, curious about everything…”

“Just your type.” Kit splutters through a faked coughing fit, accidentally-on-purpose knocking Lee with her elbow, “Pardon me, somethin’ stuck in my throat.”

“You know where he is?” Lee waits for Kit to finish coughing to ask.

“You know, he was a geologist or an archaeologist,” the old man tells him, and Lee fully expects him to launch into another irrelevant yarn, “Some say he became a shaman and went to live way off in the wilderness with some folk up the Yenisei.” Alright. So far, so relevant. Somewhat useful.

“He’s involved in magic now?” Kit asks. Because of course he is. Can’t escape from magic.

“But the last I heard, he died.”

“He  _ died _ ?” Lee repeats, and Kit gets the impression she isn’t the only one close to strangling.

“Great.” she mutters, taking Lee’s glass and emptying it for him.

“A trader told me Grumman got his leg caught in a trap. Cut it right to the bone.” the old man explains.

“We had a man in here last week said Grumman survived that trap.” the red-head maid cuts in.

“Well, that’s great news, he tell you anything else?” Lee jumps on the information. Hester jumps up onto the stool next to Kit’s, ears swivelling.

“Muscovites’re watchin’ us.” the hare whispers. Kit nods, half-listening to her and half-listening to the barmaid. She makes a point of setting Lee’s glass down next to his hand before letting her own hand fall into the space between Hester’s ears. The hare wriggles a little, having the same reaction Kit had had a minute before. “Okay, the eyes are off us,” Hester whispers, and Kit turns her full attention back to the conversation taking place. It seems Grumman had found work at the local observatory before striking out into the mountains.

***

Kit leans against the door after she closes it, the back of her head hitting the wood. The room is dark, but with more furniture than there have been in other places: two armchairs, albeit with the odd cigar burn or rat-chewed corner. At least there are heavy curtains for the window.

“That. Was somethin’ of an ordeal.” Kit sighs, eyes on the ceiling light.

“Ah. Yeah, about Eli-” Lee starts.

“I was fine with it.” Eli interjects.

“It’s alright. Honest. I was just surprised. I got you back, anyway.” Kit’s sentences are short and clipped, but Lee understands that she means what she says.

“Sure did.” Lee nods, plonking himself on the bed to start pulling his boots off.

“I’m. I’m just gonna…” Kit points at the bathroom door before heading in. Lee had managed to swing them a room with a bathroom after all. It’s miniscule and windowless, but at least there’s a sink. That’s enough. It’ll be freezing water, too. Kit pulls her jacket and jumper off, and her dress. There had been too many hands, too much contact, and she has to wash the cloying, phantom imprints of other people away before she can feel comfortable in her skin again.

Lee and Hester had been talking, Kit had heard the burbling of their voices through the door, but silence falls when she steps back into the room.

“I’ll sleep in the bed with you, I don’t trust the Muscovites not to have a skeleton key.” Kit tells Lee, sitting on the hard mattress and stretching her bare legs over a blanket that’s been washed far too many times.

“You sure about that?”

“We shared until we were what, twelve? Older? That’s not what’s bothering you, Lee.” Eli jumps up as Kit speaks, curling into a ball on her lap. Kit slides until her shoulders are somehow both on the pillow and against the cold, hard wall, “We’re doin’ it, Lee. Doin’ everything we can for the kid. Your plan is a good one, we’re not enough to protect her on our own so we gotta get this weapon. We’ll go to the observatory tomorrow and if that turns up nothin’ new then we head up the river like the old man said, okay?” Kit rubs at Eli’s ears, the same spot Lee had touched earlier. Lee says nothing, staring at Hester as Hester stares at him.

“Hester?” Eli asks, attempting to appeal to his daemon instead. Just as Kit thinks one of them is about to say something, the lights click off. Footsteps move slowly on the other side of the door to the hallway, and warm unsteady light peeks through the cracks in the door. The Samirsky must not be able to afford anbar all night, so they revert to candles instead. Eli’s eyes adjust the fastest, Kit’s in time to watch Lee roll onto his side, pinning down his half of the blanket.

“I’ll take first watch.” the aeronaut grumbles. Kit gives up on communication and mirrors Lee, shifting onto her side and letting her knees tuck into the space he’s left while Eli curls at her stomach. Both of the humans have instinctively turned to face the door, and both of them lie awake staring at it until sleep overtakes them.

***

The red curtains of the room at the Samirsky Hotel in Yenisei may be thick and heavy and worth stealing, but no matter how heavy curtains are, light will always find a way through the cracks. Dawn outlines the window, streaking onto the floor, the chairs, the bed. Eli stretches forwards, his tail curling in the air. Kit sits upright on her side of the bed, though Lee has invaded: an arm slung over her lap and a leg under the bend of Kit’s knees, which...isn’t ideal but Kit can cope. She plays with string her daemon had fished out of a pocket somewhere, experimenting with different ways of tying her hair up. Lee’s ma used to do her own hair a certain way, but Kit reckons she’d need another piece of string to replicate it properly.

It feels odd, to have the world so slow, the outline of dawn slowly growing into morning. Peaceful, almost. Almost. Kit could pretend that this was just another exploit of hers and Lee’s, going wherever the wind took them and taking whatever they liked. Living up to their reputation, toying with the Magesterium just because they could. Raising the bounties on their head. She could pretend, but that isn’t the reality. Far more than their own lives are at stake here. Everything is at stake.

Some odd, soft, sleepy sound comes from Kit’s left and a fist pushes into her stomach.

“Good morning to you too,” she mumbles, twisting hair up and behind her ear as Lee starts to wriggle, shifting onto his back and stretching his limbs in a direction that isn’t Kit’s.

“Mornin’” Hester uncurls herself from the ball she had formed on one of the chairs as Lee responds. Eli jumps up onto the bed with another length of string in his mouth and Kit thanks him as he drops it in her lap,

“You’ll need a mirror to do it properly,” her daemon tells her, “Cain’t see the back of your head, Kit.”

“Fair point,” she agrees, holding her hair in place as she stands. There’s a hole in one of her socks, and the floor is cold. It’s annoying how quickly her arms get tired whenever she tries to tie her hair, and this style is more complicated than others she’s attempted, though it should be more capable of staying put. Lee sits up as Kit uses her foot to shut the door behind her, shifting to sit on the edge of the bed, leaning forward to try and reach for his boots without getting up. His fingers have just brushed the laces when the Muscovites start banging on the door.

He knows it’s the Muscovites, and so does Kit, frozen in the bathroom. Loud, hard, demanding knocks. 

“Senor Hernandez?” It sounds odd in a Muscovy accent. It’s certainly woken Lee up.

“Shit.”

“ _ Senor Hernandez. _ ” they’re not going to ask again.

“Um. Uh, yes!”

“Well open the door,  _ Luis.”  _ Hester hisses, and that’s when Lee remembers he’ll actually have to go to the door. Right. Coherence. Cover. Sleep.

“Apologies for the delay,” Lee starts as the door swings open to reveal three guards and a man in a white doctor’s coat. Red flag number one. Muscovite guards only travel in packs if they think they’ll need help subduing a threat. Some small part of Lee takes pride in the fact that they think they need three guards to handle him and Kit, “but, uh, it is something of an unfortunate time, my wife is somewhat indisposed-” right on cue, a loud, mostly-believable retching noise pushes through the thin wall between the bedroom and the bathroom, “The joys of bringing new life into the world, huh?”

“Your wife is why we are here. Word spreads quickly in our little town, the local doctor would like to examine your wife, make sure her baby is safe and uncompromised.” Red flag number two. They wouldn’t give two shits about a pregnant woman unless she was suspicious or beneficial.

“That is a kind offer, but-” Eli yowls in the bathroom in time with another retch, “-I don’t think she would accept. I apologise again, but I would like to look after-”

“Why don’t we ask her?” A third red flag, the biggest of them all. In few places in this world are women’s opinions counted above men’s, and Muscovy is not one of those places.

“She’s not in any kinda state to-” Hester notes the subtle shift in stance, the hackles rising on the other daemon’s backs, and hops towards the bathroom,

“Of course we’ll ask her.” she cuts Lee off, “She’ll say no, but we’ll ask her.” Lee hesitates, but then he follows his daemon, every instinct in his body screaming at him for turning his back on the Imperial guard as he scoops a jacket up from the floor.

“Elina, my darlin-” the words stop short when he does actually focus on Kit. For a moment, it’s as if she’s not Kit at all. She’s wearing his mother’s hairstyle, his mother’s name. For a single moment, Kit Sanchez disappears and all Lee can see is Elina Scoresby.

“What is it?” she does not sound like his mother, and the illusion shatters.

“They, um, I…” Lee tries, he does, but he can’t quite get it out. Hester has already lopped over to Eli, whispering in his ear because the Muscovites won’t hear them. Kit’s eyes go wide like lollipops as she mouths frantically at Lee. “Some Imperial guards heard about the baby, brought a doctor to check you over.”

“And did you tell them I wouldn’t want that?” Kit asks, leaning forward to grab the jacket Lee’s holding and mouth,  _ What’s wrong? _

“You look like Ma.” Lee blurts, and Kit’s frown melts into surprise.

“He did tell us that, but we wanted to hear it from you.” a heavy Muscovy accent proclaims from the doorway. In the split second it takes for Lee to look away from Kit and back again, she’s wrapped the jacket around herself, covering every inch of cloudpine.

“He was right,” Kit replies, staring the guard down, “I’ve had…” Lee reaches out to Kit, a hand hovering at the small of her back and tapping it three times, “three children already, I would know if something were wrong with this one.”

“We insist. The best care you will find this side of the river.”

“With all due respect, we’re lookin’ for a different doctor.”

“Why do you look for Grumman?”

“My pa knew ‘im, said he was a good man. I wanted to meet him.”

“Why do you only look for him now?”

“My pa died last year, I want to give Grumman the news in person.”

“I am sorry for your loss, dear.” the doddery old doctor nods his condolences slowly. He doesn’t seem to have any ulterior motive, or know of the Guard’s. Kit honestly believes he has nothing but the best intentions, but his intentions will do nothing to save them if the Muscovites know who they are. Kit remembers then that she’s still holding a section of hair in her hand. She can’t risk lifting her arm and shifting the jacket. Without a word, Lee takes the little section of hair, twists it and tucks it just where it’s supposed to go.

“Now, if you wouldn’t mind giving my wife some privacy to dress and compose herself, we’ll be with you in just a moment.” the old doctor nodded again, reaching out for the door and swinging it shut before Lee has the chance. The moment the door is shut, Kit reaches out and turns Lee to face her.

“What is it? There’s something bothering you. About your ma.”

“Nothing. It’s nothin’.” Lee tells her, though he doesn’t try to stop Hester from mumbling to Eli. Kit’s hands drop from Lee’s shoulders as she sheds the jacket and gathers up the dark green dress she’s discarded the night before. It’s wrinkled, but only a little more than it had been yesterday. She buttons it up as far as it can go and unrolls the sleeves so they brush her wrists instead of sitting at her shoulders. Kit tugs at them out of habit, trying to make them longer.

“You ready?” Hester asks quietly, gently. Always quietly, always gently.

“Are you?” Eli counters, half-joking, his voice rougher than the hare’s, “How much do they know?”

“Enough to arrest us, I reckon.”

“Brill. Out we go then,” the lynx decides, pawing the bathroom door open. The doctor has sat in one of the armchairs, the one with the cigar burns. A guard stands either side of them, the third at the door. Kit sits in the other chair because she’s expected to and Lee stands beside it so that the Muscovite guarding the door can’t see either of their faces, a hand settling on the back of the chair as Hester hops up to sit on the arm. Eli, for his part, tries his best to stay still, though his tail swishes under the chair. He picks at the carpet at Lee’s feet, the  _ puk puk puk  _ almost a comforting sound.

“You said you’ve had three children already?” the doctor asks once he deems the Texans comfortable and settled, though they are neither.

“That’s right, sir, a set of twins and another little boy.” Lee answers.

“What are their names?” a guard asks.

“Lizzie, Ralph and Billy.”

“Very Brytish names.”

“My parents were Brytish,” Kit pulls the lie from thin air, “We moved to Texas when I was four. Their accents stayed, mine didn’t.” Kit has never prayed to any god, but she hopes this lines up with whatever Lee had said to people yesterday.

  
“When your baby is born, do you think you might name him after your father? I’m sure it would honour his memory.” the doctor offers. Lee and Kit’s heads tilt as they give him small smiles. He really can’t be aware of what’s going on. Kit’s just another potential patient.

“That is quite a lovely idea.”

“And what name would that be?” the guard cuts in again.

“Jeremiah,” Kit tells him without hesitation, “Perhaps we’ll shorten it to Jerry, easier to spell.” Hester’s ear twitches in time with Lee’s finger.

“A good strong name.” the doctor smiles. Eli watches a snake daemon slide past him and towards the rucksack slumped against the wall. Hester, from her higher vantage point, notes a tiny brown bird darting into the bathroom. Only one guard’s daemon stays put, the one that belongs to who seems to be the lead Muscovite. Mind, it would be difficult for the Great Dane she is to sneak away unnoticed. “Do you know how far along you are, dear?” Oh, yes. The doctor.

“Three months. Thought the sickness would be over by now but the travel seems to have brought it back.”

“Have you been travelling by balloon all the way?” a guard asks, again cutting across the doctor, but the old man doesn’t seem to mind too much.

“By balloon?” Lee repeats quietly. It’s all the confirmation the two of them need, and now they need a getaway. Kit holds a hand over her mouth.

“Apologies, I-” she cuts herself off, sitting up quickly, “I-” she rushes for the bathroom again. The bird daemon slips out just before the door bangs shut.

“Look, Doc, it’s awful kind of you, but-” Lee starts.

“No, no, I quite understand. I’m a complete stranger, after all.” the doctor is still smiling as he stands, and Lee wonders if he’s ignoring the Muscovites enraged glares or if he simply can’t see them. Lee moves to the door, holding it open and staring at the guard closest to him,

“Now will you  _ please _ just leave us be?” Lee’s character slips a little then, but the Imperial guards stalk out of the room after the doctor. Lee locks the door and counts to ten before Kit comes back out of the bathroom.

“So they know everything.” she starts.

“They know everything.” Lee confirms, falling into the armchair Kit had been sitting in a minute ago and pulling his boots on.

“Well fuck.” Kit curses, leaning against the wall.

“We can get to the observatory before them and then double back on ‘em,” Lee breaks off to sigh and curse, “which means we can’t wait to have breakfast.”

“Eh, Grumman’s s’posed to be a shaman now, he can magic you up a bacon sandwich when we find him.” Kit shrugs.

“That’s not how magic works.”


	7. Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second chapter that corresponds to the second half of 2x03!!
> 
> THIS IS WHERE THE GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF VIOLENCE TAG COMES IN, THERE'S MURDER, INJURIES, BLOOD AND DISCUSSION OF ABUSIVE PARENTS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sanchez & Scoresby: Now With Murder, Blood and Discussion Of Abusive Parents
> 
> Had some great friends read this over for me when it got too much, so thanks to Via and Deborah!!

It’s a clear, cold day, the observatory eclipsing the afternoon sun as the Texans stamp up the hill. At least there’s no snow. Their daemons are alert, on lookout: Hester’s ears always turning this way and that and Eli’s tail constantly flicking from one side to the other and back. There had been a close call back at the hotel; three Imperial Muscovite guards turning up at their door with a doctor, insisting that Kit go through a medical examination and demanding why they were looking for Grumman. The Muscovites know who Lee and Kit are, alright, and it’s only a matter of time before a pack of guards is sent out after them.

The wind threatens to take Lee’s hat and he clamps a hat over it to save it, but almost instantly lets it go when he notices the old man heading into the observatory and lifts his hand in greeting.

There’s a heavy metal sliding door to get through before going up even more steps and arriving at a curtain that leads to where the biggest telescope either of the aeronauts has ever seen takes up most of the space. Snow still sticks outside, to the steps and parts of the wooden walls that jut out.

“What brings you to the observatory, Mr Hernandez? And Mrs Hernandez, of course.” the old man, who has just introduced himself as a Doctor Haley, asks.

“Well, we’ve just got a coupla questions,” Lee answers, ducking under the curtain and holding it up for Kit to dip through too. Their mouths hang open at the sight of the telescope. How far must this little old man on the mountain be able to see? Kit Sanchez would want to crack some joke about being able to see the Authority, but Elina Hernandez would really rather not do that. The man’s lemur daemon - an odd form for the Yenisei climate - scrutinises Eli and Hester, round yellow eyes as big as lollipops. “This is something.” Lee remarks.

“Certainly is. Even better when the fog lifts.” Doctor Haley replies.

“I’ll bet. Can’t do anything about that?”

“No, you can’t control the weather. It’s a powerful force.”

“Don’t I know it. You work here alone?” Lee asks. Haley moves around the telescope while Lee stays still, staring at it. Kit wanders towards some kind of workbench, the wall above it full of dials and various other devices. Monitoring the weather, she assumes, finding a barometer among them.

“Yes,” Doctor Haley answers Lee’s question, “The others…” he stops himself there before correcting himself, “It’s just me.”

“Doctor Haley, we wanted to ask about a Stanislaus Grumman, we were told he was helpin’ you out here for a while?” Kit asks, her eyes meeting Lee’s as Doctor Haley’s tinkering stops at the sound of Grumman’s name.

“What do you want with Doctor Grumman?” the old man asks without turning, without returning to his work. They have his full attention now.

“My pa knew ‘im, said he was a good man. I wanted to meet him, give him the news of my pa’s passin.’” Kit answers, feeding him the same story she’d given the guard that morning. Haley does turn then, pulling his glasses off, “D’you know where we could find him?”

“Somewhere up the Yenesei River.” the same answer Kit and Lee had gotten in the bar last night.

“So he is alive,” Lee jumps in.

“Stanislaus Grumman...is a heretic,” Doctor Haley speaks slowly, measuring his words and watching Kit warily.

“Ah. We, uh, didn’t know that. Maybe we should leave him be then,” Lee says. Haley’s lemur daemon jumps down from his perch, landing no more than an inch from Eli even as Kit steps back towards Lee, “We’ll just go then, what with the weather. Thank you, Doctor Haley, you’ve been most helpful-”

“‘By their fruits shall ye know them. By their questions shall ye see the serpent gnawing at their heart.’” again, Haley speaks slowly, still watching Kit and Lee carefully, taking note of how their faces freeze. Eli’s shoulders shift in response to the growling lemur daemon.

“‘ But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, shall be slain.’” Kit replies with a nod after a second that seemed to stretch for at least twenty minutes. The words taste foul. Part of her can’t believe she still remembers them. The lemur daemon relaxes. The lynx daemon does not.

“Amen.” Doctor Haley mumbles, and Lee repeats the word,

“You have a good day, Doctor Haley.”

“And you, Mr Scoresby.”

Kit lets Lee and the daemons walk through the curtain first, frowning at the leftover snow as if she can melt it. Eli’s tail is still restless, his hackles raised.

“Well, that was weird. But I don’t think he knows who we are.” Lee starts, “That’s  _ something. _ ” 

“The Guard do, they’ll be on their way.” Kit points out.

“So we slip past them to the hotel, grab our stuff and skedaddle up the river,” Lee tells her as Kit’s frown melts, realisation hitting. What Haley had been fiddling with.  _ And you, Mr Scoresby. _

“Scoresby. Gun. Lee, get down.”

“What?”

“Get  _ down! _ ” the gunshot comes just before Kit shoves her shoulder into Lee and barges him out of the way. Their response is automatic, guns yanked from holsters, hastily aimed at the curtain and fired without hesitation. Silence rings out. “Sonuva _ bitch _ .” Kit pauses to haul Lee to his feet before striding through the curtain. Doctor Haley is slumped against his precious telescope, his lemur daemon curled into his side. There are small bullet holes in his shoes, his trousers, his shirt.

“You damn fool, why’d you do that?” Lee shouts. Kit watches as he tears his jacket off, falls next to Haley. He’s going to try and help him. Of course he is.

“Don’t.” Haley tells him, and Kit is inclined to agree.

“Let me help you.”

“Doctor Grumman is an enemy of the Magesterium,” Haley’s hand shoots out to Lee’s throat and Kit steps forward, “And so are you.” another gunshot rings out, a perfectly round hole forming in the wooden wall of the observatory and making Haley jolt.

“What makes us the enemy, Doctor? Our so-called sins?”

“Repent, and your actions here, today, will be forgiven.” Haley chokes out. Kit’s pistol clicks again as she levels it with his nose.

“Kit, don’t-” Lee tries.

“Say that again and there’ll be a hole between your eyes to match the one in your foot."

“‘Repent, and turn to the Authority,’” Doctor Haley quotes. A single speck of Dust floats up from his daemon’s tail, but that doesn’t mean he’s a goner. It means he’ll most likely survive.

“You say your god will forgive me, but will he forgive you?” Kit fires on her last word and the lemur explodes into dust.

“Stars be  _ damned,  _ Kit!” Lee yells, turning away from the body before she does. He kicks something, and Kit hears his words catch in his throat, his breaths shallow and quick.

“He...he didn’t give us a choice. You didn’t shoot to kill,” Hester tries, but her own voice is trembling. This is too much, too much for Lee. He hates killing, can’t bear it. Kit shoves her gun back in its holster and reaches out to Lee, acutely aware of the blood spatter on her hands as they land either side of Lee’s face.

“Lee. Lee, listen to me, listen, okay?”

“Kit, he’s dead, we-”

“No, no,  _ we  _ didn’t do that. Hester’s right, you didn’t shoot to kill,  _ I  _ did. He shot at you first, he  _ would  _ have killed you,” Kit reasons, but Lee shakes his head, “The Magesterium…” Kit’s voice wobbles and then disappears into nothing. The Magesterium indeed. With their goddamn repentance and penance and forgiveness that is never earned. Lee breaks away from her, dropping his gun in her hand as he picks up his jacket,

“Is there any place left that the damn Magesterium  _ hasn’t infiltrated?”  _ he roars, and Kit blinks, a chill rushing down her arms.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I killed him, I-” Kit sniffs.

“-he was tryna kill  _ you _ .” Eli finishes his human’s sentence for her as she lifts her cuff to her nose. The tears aren’t unexpected but that doesn’t mean she has to embrace them. The same applies to Lee, turning back to the curtain entrance.

“Let’s go.”

They do, eyes burning and daemons with trembling ears. The cold hits them first, almost stinging. The curtain was surprisingly good at keeping the cold out of the main building. The second thing that hits them is the sound of the safety catches of a dozen guns being clicked off.

***

Hester doesn’t think the sun has set yet. She hopes it hasn’t. Harder to break out in the dark; can’t see anything. The passing time isn’t a huge concern, though. Bigger concerns are what tipped the Imperial guard off, when they’re going to eat, and where they’ve taken Kit. She’d lunged at the first soldier who had punched Lee and that had been that, half of the pack that had caught the pair hauling her away. A dozen fully-armed soldiers had been sent out after them, and the criminals would have taken no small amount of pride in that if they weren’t currently in jail. Not that they usually thought of themselves as criminals...but today, they did. Just a little.

Lee knows that the Muscovy guard won’t show any mercy to Kit for being a woman. His own eye is black now, swollen shut as he toys with the cuffs around his wrist. They’re linked by a chain to the ones around his ankles. Doctor Haley’s blood has dried, but his own hasn’t. He rather hopes Kit’s eyes have been left alone, it’ll be easier for her to break out if she can see.

Something outside the cell buzzes, and the door creaks open. Lee sees the daemon first, some sort of monkey with golden fur far shinier and cleaner than Hester has ever been. He pads into the cell without hesitation, though it’s a moment before his human follows him. Lee can already tell that she’ll be taller than him when he stands up. She  _ looks _ harmless enough, wrapped up in a long red coat and pretty dark curls, but that is where her innocent disguise ends. There’s an attempt at a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, eyes fixed on Lee as if he is simultaneously the answer to all her questions and a bug she might want to crush underfoot. The same way a fox looks at a rabbit before it pounces. 

“Who are you and what do you want?” Lee says flatly, keeping his tone unimpressed and unruffled. The insincere smile falls as she gestures at the cell,

“Is that how you greet visitors?” she asks quietly, almost surprised.

“Did you bring food?”

“No.”

“Then who are you and what do you want?”

“You are not endearing yourself to me, Mr Scoresby, maybe I shouldn’t invite Miss Sanchez to our little chat after all.”

Lee’s not sure how anyone could hear anything through the metal of the cell door, but it’s almost as if this woman had given some sort of cue because said door creaks open again and Kit in shoved through it, yelling in some odd mixture of Spanish and English, stopping short when Hester says her name. Her nose resembles a cherry tomato more than anything now, blood tracking a trail from her nostril to her chin. They’ve taken her jumper and shirt from her, leaving her in the undershirt that does nothing to hide the cloudpine crawling across her shoulder blades. The last time Lee had let himself look at it had been on the balloon shortly after leaving Svalbard.

Kit turns her head and spits before flinging another Spanish curse at the door as it closes. She takes no notice of the woman in red as she shuffles over to Lee, her knees scraping against the stone floor. Eli reaches Hester first, rubbing his head against hers.

“Madam, we’ve done nothin’ wrong. I don’t know where you think either of us has deviated but the two of us happen to think that the Magesterium is one of the finest organisations around, and Kit and I would happily make any sort of pledge to prove it. Whatever you want, name it...So can we go now?”

Kit shifts closer, pressing her side against Lee and mumbling frantic questions in Spanish that he replies to in kind by the time the woman has sat on one of the spare stools in the room, her monkey daemon sitting obediently at her feet. Kit and Lee have their suspicions as to who this woman is, but neither of them are going to acknowledge it until she does.

“What does the name Lyra Belacqua mean to you? Either of you?” she enunciates every word so clearly, taking such care to keep emotion out.

“Let me think,” Lee starts, “Gee, I dunno. What does it mean to you, Kit? Eli? Hester?” he asks the questions, but his eyes convey a different message. They both know who this woman is. Mrs Coulter. The woman who had orchestrated the Bolvangar experiment, authorised it, overseen it. Lyra’s mother. Kit shrugs and lets out a long breath to indicate her lack of recognition of the name. Mrs Coulter laughs suddenly, humourlessly, and stops just as quickly,

“This is serious, your lives depend on it.” she informs them. Kit lifts a hand, batting it against Lee’s shoulder,

“Hey, is she related to Asriel Belacqua? The explorer? We’re big fans of ‘im, you know.” Kit replies.

“Often thought one day I’d meet that man, shake his hand and ask him how he did it all.” Lee adds. That insincere smile flickers across Mrs Coulter’s face for a split second.

“You know exactly who I am, don’t you. And I know who you are.”

“We have some idea, but I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” Kit points out. She and Lee stand at the same time, presenting their hands. Lee’s gloves have been taken and his hands are as grimy as ever, Doctor Haley’s blood dried on Kit’s.

“Lee Scoresby.” Lee offers.

“The famous aeronaut.” Mrs Coulter replies, taking Lee’s hand and twisting it in a way that should be painful but he doesn’t react at all.

“Kit Sanchez.” Kit cuts in.

“The witch.” Marisa states, doing the same to her. It is painful, but Kit bites the inside of her cheek. She lets go and asks, “Where is Lyra?”

“Cain’t help you there,” Lee tells her, smiling.

“Well, that’s interesting, because the last time I saw her she was flying off from my station in your balloon,” Mrs Coulter tells him. Hester’s nose twitches as the golden monkey daemon moves towards her. Eli sits still as a statue, watching the monkey advance.

“We ain’t never gonna tell you where she is-” Kit starts,

“-because our lives are worth one tenth of hers.” Lee finishes.

“Indeed. They are.” Mrs Coulter agrees, releasing Kit’s hand, “But you do misunderstand me, Mr Scoresby, Miss Sanchez. I’m her mother.”

“So?”

“So she needs me.”

“No she doesn’t.”

“There are things she just doesn’t understand.”

“See, I think there are things you don’t understand. The worth of a life would be one.”

“Didn’t you shoot a man dead this morning?”

“No, he didn’t. I did.” Kit corrects her. Lee sits down again and she shifts ever so slightly so her foot is in front of his, “After he tried to shoot us.”

“Do either of you have children?” Mrs Coulter asks.

“No.” Lee answers sourly.

“Then how can either of you possibly understand what it feels like? I need to find her.”

“We understand because we love that kid,” this is the wrong thing for Kit to say. It earns her a sharp slap. Kit sucks in a breath, actually surprised at the tingling sensation spreading across her cheek. It’s been a while since she’s been slapped.

“Hey!” a single, quick syllable and Lee’s on his feet again, “ _ You _ love her?” 

“Of course I do.” Mrs Coulter answers.

“It’s not enough, though, is it? Love. Doesn’t mean you won’t hurt her and it doesn't mean she’s safe with you, it don’t work that way.” Lee tells her as Kit works her jaw to relieve the sting of the slap.

“Just tell me where she is. One of you!” Mrs Coulter snaps.

“Can’t. Neither of us can, cause, like the lady said, we  _ do  _ love her. And we’re keepin’ her safe.”

“She’s safe with me.”

“The woman who turns children into ghosts? I don’t think so.” Lee retorts, too tartly for Mrs Coulter to tolerate. Eli pounces after the monkey daemon’s claws connect with Hester’s face but before they can leave a mark, the lynx knocking the monkey over onto the floor and standing over him. It’s odd to hear the wincing, hissing and growling coming from Lee, Kit and Mrs Coulter respectively rather than from their daemons.

“You  _ dare  _ attack me-”

“You’re the third person to go after him this morning, remind yourself what happened to the first two.” Kit hisses, hitting her handcuffs against her thigh more out of habit than anything else. She has no jumper sleeves to pull on. She wonders how much of Doctor Haley’s blood is still on her.

“Ah, yes, your threats make it clear my daughter is safe with you, witch.” Mrs Coulter snaps.

“You’re one to talk of threats,” Kit spits, “And one to talk of murder. How many  _ children  _ did you murder? How many souls did you take such joy in tearing apart?” Kit moves to take a step forward, but Lee has hold of the chain between her ankles despite being so curled into himself. So Kit shifts backwards instead, in front of him, even as Mrs Coulter’s calm and collected expression snaps like a rubber band, her daemon flying at Eli. The monkey may be angry and experienced, but so is the lynx, and the latter is so much bigger. The claws are sharp, scraping along Eli’s side. The feeling is unfamiliar, as if the claws are scratching her stomach from the inside. Kit hisses against it, pushing her focus past the feeling, “Good luck tryna break us through pain, Mrs Coulter.”

“Yeah, she’s right. I’ve got very few skills in life. Almost nothing to offer the world, if I’m honest. Least Kit’s got her heritage. But the two of us learned at a very young age that we’re good with pain. Y’know, this one time, my pa hit me so hard with his shoe my leg swelled up.” 

Kit knows this story. Lived it. Can’t imagine why the  _ fuck  _ he’d bring it up now. Lee doesn’t talk about his pa. Ever. Under  _ any  _ circumstances. It makes Kit wonder exactly what gamble he’s taking, what chink in Mrs Coulter’s armour he thinks is worth baring his soul, so to speak. He had always been better at reading people than her, and he wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t necessary, so she keeps her mouth shut and waits.

“Couldn’t sit. Couldn’t stand, couldn’t do  _ anything _ . He says to me, ‘Don’t you even think about runnin’ away.’ Run away? I couldn’t reach down to put on my shoes.”

“And what’s your story? Did yours kneecap you?” Mrs Coulter asks with spiky feigned sympathy, and it’s like a switch has flipped in Kit’s head, understanding slowly worming its way in. Has Lee found a chink? More than that...a link? Lee’s prompted some sort of reaction and Kit’s beginning to understand but right now he’s taking all the fire, giving Mrs Coulter everything. Kit has to be the bigger, more interesting target...and she did ask, after all.

“No, he didn’t. But how do you think I lost my fingers?” Kit asks her, holding her hands in front of her own face. Her right index finger only half there, the stumps of her left pinkie and newly-axed ring finger wrapped up to prevent the new skin from splitting. Some small corner in the back of Kit’s mind notes that the golden wedding band is still on the middle finger of her left hand, “Got one cut off every time I tried to run away, see?” Kit lifts her shoulder in an attempt to wipe still-trickling blood from her nose, “Oh yeah, and that mess there?” she starts, indicating the scar tissue on that same shoulder, “He pulled a buncha cloudpine outta me. So really, there ain’t nothin’ you can throw at us that’s gonna stick. And you know that, don’t you?”

“Our pas would humiliate us until we’d said enough sorries to make up for whatever thing they decided that day would justify their tempers.” Lee goes on,

“Or, you know, would justify existin.’” Kit adds. Lee has turned his face away from the woman he’s just spilled his guts too, but Kit keeps staring at her, watching as bit by bit her guard crumbles.

“You do know, don’t you?” she does, and they can see it. They know it, “You know, because you had parents just like ours. Course you did. Of course you did.” Mrs Coulter bears no physical marks of having parents like theirs, but they can see the scars as clearly as Kit’s missing fingers. There are always scars.

“You know nothing about me.” Mrs Coulter tries, her voice reduced to a whisper.

“On the contrary, Mrs Coulter, we know everythin’ about you.” Kit’s voice is as low as hers now, grateful for Lee spelling it out to help her reach the same conclusion he had. For a moment, Mrs Coulter isn’t the big bad wolf. She’s just another scared little child like they were. Kit sits then, expecting her to snap again, to march away and for a pair of guards to come in and drag Kit back to her own cell. That’s not what happens. Lee’s voice cuts through, louder than the womens’,

“I believed him. I believed I was nothin’ believed I deserved it. I was almost grateful for it when it came. Ever feel that? Grateful? You did, didn’t you?” he’s crossing the line again and he knows it, knows Mrs Coulter is losing her grip on her emotions, “I know what it’s like to feel hurt like yours! But right now, I feel more alive than I have in years because of her. She’s given me a purpose. She’s given me  _ hope _ .” Authority be damned, he’s smiling. One little girl has changed so much. Mrs Coulter’s eyes are brimming with tears. Again, her daemon moves before she does, launching himself at Hester. In the split-second it takes for his human to copy him, Kit has shot up between Lee and the enemy, and Mrs Coulter’s hand closes around Kit’s throat instead. Unfortunately, this leaves them at a stalemate.

“Like I said. We know everything about you. Because you’re just like us. We love that kid of yours. We wouldn’t hurt a hair on her head. Like the man said, her life is worth so much more than ours.” Kit’s hissing again, sounding more like her daemon than herself.

“I will rip out every nail, and I will break every bone-”

“That wouldn’t break me and you know it wouldn’t. It-”

“I didn’t say they would be yours.” Mrs Coulter cuts in sharply. There’s an odd, almost squeaking sound of pain from behind Kit as the monkey tightens his grip on Hester. Kits retort dries and dies in her throat. Lee would break Kit, just as Lyra would break Mrs Coulter, and she knows it.

“Nothin’ on earth would make us give Lyra up to you.” Lee forces out, and Mrs Coulter’s eyes flick to him for a moment. After a count of five, she releases Kit and the monkey lets go of Hester. She rushes out of the cell a far cry from the woman who came in. She isn’t the fox staring down its prey after all. They’re all rabbits. 

Kit hears Lee move to lie on the floor, hears Hester’s comforting mumblings as she presses her head to his, but Kit keeps her eyes on the door. She stares at it even as tears track their way through the blood and dirt on her face. Holding her breath to keep any sound she might make stuck in her throat. Gripping the chain between her wrists in case…

“He ain’t comin’ Kit.”

“Why did you do that?” she asks the question but doesn’t turn from the door.

“Why did you go along with it?”

“I trusted you had good reason for it.”

“She wants to be a part of Lyra’s life. She can’t be until she’s someone the kid’s safe with, until she’s stepped from offense to defence,” Lee’s voice cracks, but Kit can’t quite make herself look away from the door, her feet shifting further apart, “She needed a push.”

“Too damn soft, Scoresby, ‘s what you are,” she does turn then, giving up her watch. She doesn’t particularly want to be touched, but she knows Lee well enough to know that it’s what he needs. Kit kneels on the floor, lifting her chained hands over Lee’s head in the best hug she can manage, “Good thing you are, too, ‘m hard as fuckin’ nails.” she shifts a little, letting Lee put more weight on her. “Hey, do you remember the first time you got a black eye?”

“Were we ten or eleven?” Lee asks, grateful for the distraction. After a scare, his mother had always settled on the floor or the bed, pulled the children onto her lap and told them stories until their tears dried. He wonders if that’s why Kit’s recently started telling stories again.

“Ten. You fell from the produce train, tripped right outta the fruit carriage. Dropped all our raspberries and tore that good poncho your mama had made for your birthday.”

“Only fell cause my leg was stiff.”

“It’s still stiff, Scoresby.”

“Kit...Kit they’re gonna take you away. They’re not gonna let you stay here.”

“I know. But I’m here right now.”

***

They did not let Kit stay. Three guards come to wrestle her and Eli back to their cell. It’s smaller than Lee’s and without a window. Anbar lights flicker on the ceiling, but they do nothing to help Kit calculate the passage of time. She’s trying to take her boots off in the hopes that without them she can slip her feet through the rusty metal cuffs around her ankles. There’s a dull ache in the back of her head and she knows even being unable to touch it that there will be blood there. No doubt the head injury is contributing to the dizziness. The headache gets worse the harder Kit tries to focus, which irritates her. 

She slams a wrist against the corner of a stone pillar, but the cuff around it doesn’t break.  _ Useless, useless wretch of a witch. No wonder your mother left you behind. No magic. No guts. No use.  _ Kit hits the cuff again with an enraged yell.  _ You just gonna sit there? Ain’t gonna say nothin? Do nothin? Course you’re not.  _ Another crash, another yell.  _ No, you’re not going to do anything. Worthless thing.  _ Another roar trying to drown out the ghostly shouts-

“Kit!” Eli’s voice cuts through, “Kit, you’re hurting us.” Kit sniffs, only just noticing hot tears tracking down her face, stinging her split lip.

“I’m sorry,” she reaches out to her daemon, burying her face into his neck and letting her hands sink into the fur on his sides, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Just concentrate on getting us out.”

Kit understood Lee’s intention in shaking up Mrs Coulter, in trying to start a chain reaction, but it had left him and Kit shaken too. Now, trapped and alone, ghosts getting louder and louder, she’s near breaking point. Everything hurts. They’ve lost their advantage over the Magesterium. They haven’t found Grumman or his weapon and they have no idea where Lyra is. Part of Kit wants to curl up on the floor and stay there. Another, far larger part, wants to act on the instinct to break out and run.

Kit counts to seventeen before sitting up again, taking in a shuddery breath and letting go of her daemon. Tears won’t help anyone and they’ll only speed up dehydration. Kit grasps the heel of her boot and yanks it off. She pulls off the dark green sock too, knowing that it could make all the difference, and starts trying to push the ankle cuff off.

Her foot, though now in pain, is out of the ankle cuff when the cell door slides open again. Mrs Coulter rushes in without hesitation, but also without the confidence she’d had before. Still, Kit gets to her feet as quickly as she can, her dizziness pitching her quite suddenly to one side and forcing her to lean against the wall.

“There’s a prophecy. About Lyra. The witches speak of it.” Mrs Coulter speaks in short sentences, as if they’re all she can manage.

“Ma’am, I wasn’t raised by the witches, I don’t have magic-”

“You don’t?” she’s surprised, but only for a split second, “But you know of the prophecy?” she asks. Kit considers spitting at her again, but... _ She wants to be a part of Lyra’s life. She can’t be until she’s someone the kid’s safe with, until she’s stepped from offense to defence. _

“Yes. Yes, I know the prophecy.”

“Then you know how important she is.”

“I do. I know how important it is that Mr Scoresby and I find her.”

“You are named in the prophecy?” Mrs Coulter asks, surprised.  _ Yes, we are. Well...in a roundabout sort of way. _ Kit doesn’t speak her thoughts. 

“If I tell you anymore it could change everything.”

“The only reason I ask is because...people will be looking for my daughter, not all of them good.”

“You mean the Magesterium.” Kit states flatly, unsurprised, wondering for a brief moment if it had been Mrs Coulter who had tortured the information out of the witch the Church had captured. She wonders if the Magesterium would kill Lyra as quickly as they would her and Lee. Mrs Coulter, despite her crumbling guard, stares at Kit just as flatly. 

“You mustn’t trust anyone.”

“Do you?” Kit asks, and an answer flickers across Mrs Coulter’s face. No, she doesn’t. This is common ground between them.

“I am looking for Lyra myself, but if you find her...you will keep her safe?”

“I will. Trust me.” Kit answers, daring to blur the line drawn in the sand. Mrs Coulter hesitates, nods, and tosses a ring of keys towards Kit, whose hands are too restricted and unprepared to catch them.

“You stole them from the guard.” Mrs Coulter tells her, rebuilding her guardwall as she turns to leave.

“Thank you,” Kit tries. Then, “You made the right choice.” This makes Mrs Coulter pause, but she doesn’t respond. She leaves the cell door open, stepping over the unconscious guard slumped on the floor, her daemon picking up his snake one.

“Wouldja look at that?” the lynx whispers, “The idiot might be onto something.”

“Don’t call Lee an idiot.”

“Hey, I’m your soul, so technically  _ you  _ called him an idiot.”

“Make sure that guard don’t wake up, will ya, Eli?”

“Real subtle, Sanchez.”

Kit’s fingers complain about having to manipulate the key in the locks of the cuffs, but it’s not long before they clank onto the floor. She pulls her boot back on and pushes herself to her feet. She gives the guard a prod with her foot as she passes him,

“D’you reckon the monkey killed his daemon?” Eli whispers, his jokey tone completely gone but no doubt soon to return, “Hope not, we’ll get blamed for that one too...two doors down to Lee’s cell, Kit.” The biggest key on the ring fits into the lock on the cell door, but the door itself is unexpectedly easy to push open.

“Kit?”

“Hellcats, Lee,” Kit falls to the floor without hesitation, attempting to pull her sleeve over her hand to dab at the blood on Lee’s face before again remembering she has no sleeves. He’s clearly had another visit from the guards, just as Kit had, “I’ll kill ‘em, I swear I will.”

“Please don’t. Kit, how-”

“She let me out. Lyra’s ma. Gave me the keys.”

“Your nose…”

“I cain’t hardly feel it, it’s fine. Your  _ face _ !”

“Can’t hardly f-feel it, ‘s fine.”

“Not funny,” Kit says stoutly. There’s so much blood on her hands, “She let us out, but she can only buy us so much time. How does standing up sound?”

“Painful. Why’d she do it?” the words come out all in one breath as Lee starts to push himself onto his feet. Kit takes hold of his elbow and puts his arm over her shoulders.

“She knows there’s a prophecy and figured she could use some allies. Kiddo’s more wanted than we are,” the last words turn into a shared groan as stiff, painful legs straighten and take on weight that Kit does her best to take more than her share of, pain pulsing into her forehead.

“I’m sorry.” Lee forces out. Kit doesn’t ask what he’s apologising for.

“Don’t be. Just concentrate on. Not fallin’ over.”

“But how do we find Grumman now?” Hester asks, her voice small.

“We head up the river, hope he’s not dead.” Eli answers, holding her gaze before looking up at his human, “But I rather think we should collect our effects first. Gonna be cold out there without a coat.”


End file.
